


Cat's Cradle

by anax imperator (anax)



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-01-24 07:10:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18566455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anax/pseuds/anax%20imperator
Summary: In his darkest hours, Nero searches for a reason to have hope.Sequel to the Gatecrashers:https://archiveofourown.org/works/3632028Which was itself a sequel to Objective Uncertainty, Held Fast:https://archiveofourown.org/series/199325The content warnings on the applicable chapters are not a joke, so please do not read if you are sensitive to that kind of thing.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for suicidal ideation

Nero knew he had a problem. He was at rock bottom, unable to so much as see the light above him, and the hellish part of it was that he knew Dante would do anything to help him, if Nero just knew what to ask for. But some part of Nero didn't want help - some part of him wallowed in the darkness at the bottom of this emotional pit. That part of him was in control as he sat on the couch with a library book, looking at the pages and not seeing them, contemplating what it would take to end his own life.

He knew he had a problem, but he couldn't see a way out of it, except for the ultimate one, which made the problem perfectly circular with no escape.

"Devil May Cry."

The sound of the phone ringing and Dante answering it sent a black spike of despair through Nero. _Please let it be Lady. Or Trish. Or anyone but a job._

"Yes, it is," Dante was saying. "Uh-huh. When did it start?"

Sounded like a job. Nero couldn't even pretend to read anymore; he folded the book down on his lap and looked over at Dante, who offered him a cheerful smile. _Don't go._

"Sliding scale," said Dante. "Right." He took his feet off the desk and reached for the pen and pad of paper. "What's your address? Hang on, you said Greenbelt? Uh-huh. Okay. Forty minutes or so. Right. Bye." He hung up, scribbled a little more onto the pad, and then cocked an eye at Nero. "You okay, kid?"

_No. Don't go._ But they needed money, badly enough that even Dante acknowledged it. Nero forced himself to smile. "Yeah," he said. It apparently wasn't convincing, because Dante just looked at him, until Nero's eyes slid away and he said, "I'm fine. You don't have to baby me."

"I can give this one to Trish," said Dante.

"No. I'm fine, I'm telling you." Nero picked up his book again, pretended to read it. "Go on, do your thing." He hoped Dante didn't hear his throat closing on the final word.

For a minute or so Nero thought that maybe Dante _would_ stay. Maybe he _would_ pass this job along to Trish, maybe he just somehow knew, without being told, that Nero really needed him right now.

But it was not to be. Eventually Dante said, "I'll be back in a couple of hours."

Nero nodded, fighting the hopelessness that resided as a hollow place in the pit of his throat. Dante put on his coat, gathered up his guns and his sword, and checked his wallet before sweeping out the door.

What would it be like, for Dante to come back later tonight and find Nero dead on the floor? He'd feel guilty, and some vicious part of Nero sort of liked that – punishment for leaving Nero alone when he really needed company – but mostly Nero didn't want that to happen. So if he was going to do this, he'd need a different plan than just blowing his brains out with Blue Rose in the next ten minutes. It would be best, he thought, if he just ... kind of disappeared, never to be found. Maybe somewhere out of town, out in the woods. Somewhere peaceful, where only the silence of nature would bear witness to the end of Nero's misery.

Mulling this over, Nero went behind the bar and pulled out the bottle of Jack Daniel's and took a swig. He liked this idea, of laying down quietly under the trees and just sort of not existing anymore. Where could he find a place like that, where hunters and hikers didn't go, where no one would ever find him? But then there was the problem of, what could kill him? He didn't think he was nigh-immortal, like Dante, but he'd taken a lot of hits that would kill a human and shrugged them off. What could put an end to him? Would Blue Rose be enough? The last thing Nero wanted to do was merely cripple himself.

After taking another swig of whiskey, Nero put the bottle away, liking the warmth of it in his blood. Yamato was always an option. Yamato would slit his wrists with brutal efficiency, or maybe his throat. Or maybe he could stab himself in the heart. Nero wasn't quite sure his arms were long enough to do a proper stab, so he might have to prop the sword up somehow and fall on it. Yamato was sharper than the despair eroding Nero's soul; all he'd have to do was get it in the proper position and just let go.

Yes, this was a good idea. It would be a shame to hide Yamato away in the woods with his body, never again to be found, but Dante _did_ keep saying that Yamato belonged to Nero.

The weapon room was cool, as it was not vented for central heating. Nero opened the door, flipped on the light, and stood in the doorway for a while, looking over at the white-hilted katana hanging on the rear wall. A faint thread of a whisper touched his mind, and he frowned.

"Don't you start," he said, and the whisper faded.

Here was a problem that Nero hadn't thought of before: Yamato might not cooperate. The sword was sharp, but it had a will of its own and it might turn in his hand, or just fail to cut him. Maybe Blue Rose was the right answer after all. Maybe he should just leave Yamato here.

Again, the whisper touched him, and this time it pulled faintly. "Don't try to talk me out of this," Nero said, although that hollow place in his throat closed off again at the idea that, of all the things in the world, the sword cared and didn't want him to die. Something inside Nero _wanted_ to be talked out of this, wanted to be wanted, needed, loved and cherished enough for it to be worth living. If he couldn't get that from Dante – even though Nero could acknowledge that Dante _would_ give it to him if he just asked – maybe Yamato would provide it. And how pathetic was that, asking for love from an inanimate object?

Outside the weapon room, Nero heard the front door open, and, annoyed at the interruption, he told Yamato, "I'll be back." He flipped off the light and closed the door.

The front door was drifting shut when Nero came out into the main room; a figure stood just inside, somehow shapeless in silhouette, until the door closed completely and it became apparent that the figure was wearing some kind of hooded cloak, not dissimilar to the cloaks often worn on Fortuna. Was this someone from his hometown?

"Sorry, Dante's out," said Nero. "Can I help you?" His right hand itched, and he looked down to see his devil bringer glowing brightly, as brightly as it ever did around Dante.

So this was obviously some kind of demon, a powerful one. The visitor walked into the room – sort of staggered, actually - looking around, saying nothing. It started to creep out Nero, and it irritated him that his suicidal plans were on hold until this devil decided to leave. Killing it crossed his mind for a moment, but a mild sort of curiosity stayed his hand. It hadn't attacked yet, and it was a strong devil. Maybe it would kill him and spare him all the trouble.

Something was wrong with the demon, though; Nero's visitor seemed barely able to stay upright. It was in a human form under the cloak, it appeared, wearing pants and boots like any regular person. "What are you?" asked Nero. "You're not fooling me, talk to me."

"I'm running out of time," said the devil, its voice hoarse as though it were ill. It stumbled toward Dante's desk, and then took decisive steps toward the door that led to the rear hallway. A couple of those, and Nero decided he'd had enough. He stepped in front of the devil to block its path.

"You can't go back th--"

The demon struck out, cuffing Nero hard in the side of the head, throwing him effortlessly into the bar. Nero hit the edge of the bar, and he heard something crack through the sudden daze of head trauma, pain exploding through his back. He dropped to the floor, clawing impotently at the floorboards as the pain ricocheted around his body, seeming to flow up to his shoulders and down to his thighs. He wasn't sure if he was crying out or not; somehow he'd become detached from his body, experiencing the pain through a haze.

The devil dragged itself through the rear door and out of the room, and Nero sort of lost time or something, because the next thing he knew a soft whisper touched him, a warm and fond goodbye.

Then Nero passed out entirely, laying his head to the floor and giving up on consciousness.

* * *

"Hey, Nero! Nero! Shit, Nero!"

Nero roused back to the world to a frantic voice, one he knew well, and hard shaking. "Dante," he murmured, or tried to, his fingers curling into the floor.

"Nero! Fucking hell, kid, wake up!" The shaking grew impossible to ignore; it hurt too fucking much.

Nero tried to move, and fresh pain lanced through his back, making him whine in agony. "Dante," he murmured again, and he was rolled over onto his back in a screaming detonation of pain that was just too intense to voice.

"Nero! What the hell happened? Please wake up!"

Nero pried his eyes open and looked blearily up at what could only be Dante, although his vision wouldn't focus. "Dante," he said for a third time, and this time it seemed he was heard.

"Fuck, Nero." Hands ran over his face. "Are you okay? Please, tell me you're okay."

"Not okay," said Nero, and somehow the words garbled themselves. He tried to reach up to touch Dante in return, but he just clawed at the air; Dante nevertheless took him by the hand, fingers clutching Nero's devil bringer.

"What happened? Nero, please be okay. Please don't die on me. Please."

Nero was pretty sure he wasn't going to die, as disappointing as that was. He was just injured, probably a lot less injured than he'd been when first thrown into the bar, but too injured to move nevertheless. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. "Dante," he said, yet again.

"Yeah, kid. I'm here." Dante chafed the back of Nero's devil bringer. "I'm here. Speak to me. Stay with me."

Closing his eyes, Nero let his arm relax, but Dante continued to hold his hand. "I'm not dying," he tried to say, and again the words came out wrong.

"Hang on," said Dante. "Don't leave me, okay? I'll be right back."

_No._ Nero tried to hold onto Dante's hand, but his fingers were nerveless and Dante set his hand down on his chest. _Don't go._ But Dante rose regardless.

"I'll be right back. Okay? Don't leave me, kid."

Where was Nero possibly going to go? He couldn't move, could barely see, and he wasn't dying. He let his head loll to the side, and just sank into the welter of pain. As long as he didn't move, it was tolerable, but if he so much as twitched it spiked to unbearable agony.

Nero couldn't have said how long Dante was gone, but it seemed like forever. Eventually, though, the older hunter was back, and picked up Nero's hand again. "Nero," said Dante urgently. "What happened to Yamato? Do you have it? Can you trigger?"

"No," said Nero, and he tried to shake his head and just managed to roll it in a semi-controlled fashion from side to side. "Weapon room."

That came out all wrong, too, but Dante seemed to understand anyway. "It's not there," he said. "You don't have it? Where did you leave it?"

"Weapon room," said Nero again, confused by the response. Of course Yamato was in the weapon room, hanging amongst the other devil arms. Where else would it be?

A weird memory of the strange devil lurching toward the rear hallway drifted into Nero's mind. Surely that demon hadn't taken Yamato. Yamato would never tolerate it.

"It isn't there," said Dante, and Nero just didn't understand at all.

Dante tried to lift Nero's upper body, probably to hold him, and that hurt so _fucking_ much that Nero moaned in a paroxysm of pain. "Down," said Nero, as best he could when his tongue wasn't cooperating, and Dante eased him back down to the floor.

"Okay," said Dante. "I'm sorry. Nero, please. I want you to use Yamato, but I can't find it. What happened to it? Do you know? Where is it?"

There was really only the one conclusion. "Demon," said Nero. "Threw me ... took Yamato?"

Dante rubbed Nero's hand again. "A demon? Here? Did a demon do this to you?"

"Yes," said Nero. He was starting to get sleepy again, and was annoyed when Dante shook him back awake.

"Don't leave me, Nero. Please, please, don't leave me."

This was highly irritating, because Nero wasn't dying. He was hurt, maybe his back was broken, but he disappointingly wasn't dying. He could understand everything Dante said, so he probably wasn't even concussed, or at least not badly, although he could barely speak in return. He closed his eyes, and refused to open them again even when Dante's voice became frantic once more, and he shook Nero by the shoulders hard enough to make pain lance once more through his back.

"Nero!" Dante was saying. "Don't die on me! Please, don't die!"

"Not dying," Nero tried to say, but he was just so tired he wasn't sure how well it came out. "Need to sleep."

"No, don't go to sleep. Don't go to sleep, Nero. Stay with me. Please. Please." Dante's voice broke.

Aside from Dante's voice, there was no sound in the room, and Nero was able to imagine himself out in the forest where he'd planned to kill himself, lying dead with Dante holding him and begging him to come back. That was a comforting thought, that Dante cared enough about him to beg him not to die, and Nero hung onto that while he fell back into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More suicidal ideation in this chapter. Do not read if you are sensitive.

"Are you positive?" asked Lady.

"Yes," said Nero, annoyed by the question. "It's just a matter of time, okay? I'll be fine." He tried to rearrange the pillows that kept him propped up on the couch, even though he couldn't really twist around, just to avoid looking too crippled.

Lady looked dubious, and although she stopped questioning him she instead turned to Dante. "Is he going to be all right?"

"Eventually," said Dante, although he, too, sounded doubtful. He nevertheless gave the baby in his arms a brilliant smile.

This was the first time Nero had seen Lady since she'd given birth, and he'd gotten so used to seeing her pregnant that she looked weirdly skinny now. The birth had been uneventful, as far as Nero knew, and the baby had come out healthy, so now Dante and Lady were linked irrevocably together. The baby's name was Julia, and she had no obvious demonic traits but Nero somehow just knew, looking at her, that she wasn't fully human.

"I feel like he needs a back board or something," said Lady. "How do you know it's going to heal straight with him sitting up on the couch?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine," said Dante, although he still didn't _sound_ sure.

Nero couldn't move his legs, but he could feel them now and the pain was much reduced from where it had been yesterday. Even though Dante didn't seem positive that things were going to work out okay, Nero was sure it was going to be fine. He just needed to rest and eat something, and he'd be healed in probably another couple of hours.

The big question, of course, was how to find the demon that had stolen Yamato. Dante planned to go out looking today, now that Lady was here to look after Nero, but what the man planned to do other than wander aimlessly in search of a demon to interrogate was a complete unknown to Nero. Maybe that was the whole plan. Nero hadn't asked. He barely cared enough to wonder.

Dante handed the baby back to Lady, saying, "How is she eating?"

"Like a horse," said Lady, smoothly taking the baby back and settling her against her shoulder. The infant wound up looking Nero's way, staring at him like he was some kind of alien. Nero raised a hand and wiggled his fingers, but Julia didn't react. Lady noticed, however, and said to Nero, "Do you want to hold her?"

"I guess." Nero pushed himself a little closer to upright, dragging one leg into position by the pant leg. Lady came over to hand over Julia, and she fit into Nero's arms like a puzzle piece.

He was startled to see that she had dark, smoky blue eyes, the same color he saw in the mirror every day.

"I'm taking her back to the pediatrician on Monday for a checkup," said Lady to Dante. "If you want to come."

"Depends on what's going on with this demon and Yamato," said Dante. "I need to find it. We can't have Yamato floating around in the world somewhere. If I can make it, though, I'll come with you."

"All right. Why don't you go do that, then? We'll be fine here."

Dante glanced around Lady toward Nero. "This is okay with you, right, kid?"

Nero just shrugged. He didn't much care. He didn't like Lady, but hating Lady took too much energy and he no longer saw the point in it. "Whatever," said Nero, returning his attention to Julia. The baby stared up at him, looking almost mystified; Nero could kind of understand how she must feel, looking at a strange world full of strange people for the first time and not understanding any of it. He tickled her nose with the back of one talon, and she waved her fists.

"All right." Dante holstered his guns, and came over to Nero to run his hand over the top of Julia's head. "I'll be back whenever I get some information."

"Good luck with that," said Nero.

"Your confidence overwhelms me."

"I'm kind of with Nero," said Lady. "Some demon steals Yamato. Do you think every demon will know something about that?"

"No, but devils are incorrigible gossips and hopefully at least one of them will know something. I don't know, do you have a better idea?"

"Not really."

Dante hesitated with his hand above Julia's head, and for a moment Nero was sure he was going to run it over Nero's face. But he refrained, and said, "Watch out for yourselves." Then he went behind the desk to take Rebellion off the wall and went out the door.

Julia yawned a tiny yawn, and Nero, despite sort of hating Lady, found he couldn't hate this miniature person. Yes, the baby was half-Lady, but she was also half-Dante, and that counted for something. Nero found himself gently rocking the baby in his arms, and he said, "She's beautiful."

"I think so," said Lady. "I don't know how much of that to blame on Dante, though."

"So, if this is inconvenient for you," said Nero, "I don't really need a babysitter."

"I'm not babysitting you," said Lady. "I'm bodyguarding you, since you can't defend yourself right now."

That was pretty ludicrous, that Lady could defend Nero with Julia here, but whatever. Nero honestly didn't care. He just wanted some peace to daydream about not having to live with himself anymore.

He wasn't destined to get that with Lady here, though. After a little while, Lady said, "So, how are things with you?"

"How are what things with me?"

"I don't know. Life and everything. I hardly see you anymore."

That was because Nero no longer worked and almost never left the building, and he didn't really want to have a conversation about that. He didn't bother to reply, and Lady went to sit down on the end of the couch, on the other side of Nero's feet. Nero kept his gaze down at Julia, and gently stroked her chubby cheek with the backs of his fingers, his talons kept safely curled inward.

"Nero," said Lady, so gently. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm not okay," said Nero, a little bitterly. "My spine is fractured and I'm currently paralyzed."

"You know that's not what I mean."

Nero did know perfectly well what she meant, but he didn't want to talk about it. He pressed his lips together and just said nothing.

After a minute or so, Lady said, "Why don't you go out devil hunting anymore?" When Nero just stared at a drowsing Julia, stubbornly silent, she added, "You haven't for months. Have you? Dante's been taking everything I pass over. I know you didn't just decide to retire, so what happened?"

_What happened._ What happened was that _Lady_ happened, she sent him on that job that resulted in him murdering a guy, and Nero still wasn't fully convinced in his heart that that had been a devil in the end. And maybe under other circumstances he might have wanted to talk to her about that, recriminate, get her to apologize or at least acknowledge that she'd done him wrong. But Nero wasn't really up to it right now. What would be the point? What was the point of anything, really?

"Nero," said Lady, and she laid a hand on the blanket over his knees. "I need to know that you're okay."

"I'm fine," said Nero, automatically, reflexively, and he didn't even try to make it sound real. Lady didn't respond, and eventually the silence stretched out so awkwardly that Nero had to fill it. "Really. I'm ... everything's fine. I don't really want to talk about why I'm not devil hunting. Shit hasn't been great for me, okay? I'm ..." _Not safe._ He didn't say it, but the words were there, on the tip of his tongue. He wasn't safe to be around humans, and he was a positive danger to himself and others around devils. "... not in the mood to talk about this."

"I see." She sounded ... disappointed? Sad? It was hard for Nero to parse her tone and he didn't really want to bother trying. "You're talking to someone, though, at least. Right?"

Nero couldn't hold in a contemptuous noise. "Talk to who about what? Who would want to talk to me about my devil hunting issues?"

"Well," said Lady. "I would, if you wanted to talk to me about them. I thought we were friends."

"What gave you that idea?"

"I don't know." Lady relaxed against the back of the couch, and said, "Are we colleagues at least?"

"I guess." Nero could grant her that much, he supposed.

"You used to love killing demons," said Lady. "I guess ... I'm just worried about you, that's all."

Her words put a painful little point into Nero's throat, because he hadn't realized at all that she was worrying for him, and he wondered for a moment how she would react if he told her that he actively wanted to die. He thought about doing it, about just telling her about the flashbacks, the depression, his suicidal plans, his worthlessness and despair. What would she do? Aside from tell Dante, of course ... what would she do right now, in this moment, if he told her?

Lady, he knew, wasn't a cruel person. He was certain she wouldn't mock him, or minimize what he was telling her. He looked at her, while he held Julia in his arms and the baby made little indefinable noises. Lady was a mother now, and mothers knew things.

"I'm ..." said Nero, and his throat closed with the enormity of what he was about to do. She looked over at him, her expression so open and so inviting that he almost did it. He almost started to tell her that he wasn't okay, that everything was awful, that he'd been on a solid track toward dying just yesterday when that demon had arrived and crippled him.

But what actually came out of his mouth was, "I'm okay. You don't have to worry about me. I'm fine."

She looked at him for a long moment, before nodding a little, and Nero guessed that she was unhappy with this answer but as long as she accepted it he didn't care.

With Yamato gone, that foreclosed a lot of options for Nero. He still wasn't completely sure that Blue Rose would hurt him enough to kill him, and he didn't want to just kind of injure himself, so what did that leave him?

"Maybe I will go devil hunting again," he said, musing. He could find something big and vicious, and pick a fight, and then lose and be eaten. The only logistical challenge would be to persuade Dante that he was up for it, so he was allowed to leave alone. Maybe he could figure something out while Dante was out looking for Yamato. Nero could sort of intellectually appreciate how dangerous it was for a random devil to have Yamato in hand, but he couldn't make himself get too worked up over it. Mainly the sword's loss was an inconvenience for him.

Julia made a soft creaking sound, and closed her smoky eyes, and Nero wondered if she was going to go to sleep. What was he supposed to do if she did? Just hold her indefinitely?

"I can find something for you, I'm sure, if you want to," said Lady. "I just wish I knew why you were taking this break in the first place."

Something momentarily broke through Nero's apathy: anger at Lady's prodding. "It's because of you," he said, before he could stop himself, and then wished instantly that he could take it back.

"Because of me?" asked Lady. "How?"

But Nero shook his head, unwilling to elaborate. "Nevermind," he said. "Forget I said anything." He settled Julia more closely against his chest and shoulder.

"Nero," said Lady, slowly and so, so quietly. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," said Nero, because it ultimately didn't matter at all. Nothing mattered. The anger was gone, and so was the light it had brought with it. "No, don't pay any attention to me. I'm a fuckup, that's all. You didn't do anything."

"If I did something, please let me know. I'd like to know."

"You didn't. Don't worry about it." Nero resigned himself to being trapped in place by the sleeping baby, since he didn't want to disturb and wake her, and tried to find a comfortable position that he could hold for a long period. If he leaned back enough, he could do it, he thought, but one of the pillows behind his back was a little bit in the way. He thought about asking Lady to help him rearrange, and decided to go for it. "Hey, Lady, can you help me move this pillow?"

"Sure." She stood up, came around, and said, "This one? Or this one?"

"The first one," said Nero, and between them they were able to carefully move it so Nero could get comfortable without waking the baby.

Once that was done, Lady sighed, and said, "I thought we were friends. I'm sorry, for whatever I did. Really. I wouldn't ever do anything to hurt you if I knew."

"You didn't do anything," said Nero again, although that point of pain in his throat was back. He gently rocked the baby in his arms, soothed by her presence, her weight against his shoulder.

"Okay. If you say so. I just want you to know that I'm sorry for whatever I did."

Nero wished Dante would come back. He wanted to lay his head in Dante's lap while he tried to resolve the problem of how to off himself properly. He didn't really want to be eaten by a demon, for several reasons, not least of which was the fact that it would be hella painful. The objective was to end his pain, not compound it. There was also the fact that the demon might not actually kill him - it might just maul him and leave him for dead - and he didn't really want to succumb to demon claws, either. He was just philosophically opposed to dying to something he could kill if he wanted.

The ideal solution would be for Dante to kill him. Dante would make it quick. Of course Nero couldn't ask that, and Dante would never agree, but it made for a nice daydream. Dante would kiss him, maybe even fuck him first, and then give him a painless sendoff in the form of a beheading, probably. Or maybe Dante would stab him through the heart. Nero could well imagine Rebellion's blade emerging from his chest, angling downward from where it had entered his back.

Dante would never understand, would never cooperate with Nero's death, and Nero could never ask it of him. But that was a damned shame, because it would be a good death.

Maybe Nero could somehow contrive to cut himself open on Rebellion. He would never steal away to the forest with Dante's sword, but maybe he could kill himself here with a minimum of fuss. Maybe he could pick a fight with Dante, act like it was a normal sparring match, and then just ... not block one of Dante's strikes and take the ultimate fall.

He imagined the look of utter horror and shock that would bloom across Dante's face, and felt a little guilty for even thinking this way, because of course that would destroy his lover and Nero couldn't do that to him. But it would be quick at least, and easy, and guaranteed to work.

Nero smiled down at Julia, who was definitely sleeping by this point, and said, "Don't worry about me." No matter what happened to him, Dante would be comforted by the baby. In a way, this was Nero's cousin, and while a part of Nero wanted to see Julia grow up, and do cousin-y things with her, be there for her if she sprouted some kind of demonic bodily feature in the future ... that wasn't something that was realistic. She wouldn't even remember him, and that was fine, really.

"If you say so," said Lady, and she didn't sound convinced, but whatever. As long as she stopped bothering him, Nero didn't care if he convinced her. Maybe she would also be upset when Nero died - or just disappeared, if he could swing it - but Nero didn't much care.

He tried diligently to wiggle his toes, and after several attempts he was rewarded with a distinct twitch. He'd be better soon enough, and be capable of implementing some kind of plan. He just needed to decide what that plan was going to be.

* * *

Around noon, Lady fed a couple of fast-food burgers to Nero and was visibly amazed when he stood up from the couch not long after. "What?" Nero asked, annoyed by the attention as he lurched unsteadily toward the bar. His back still hurt, but it was a very tolerable kind of pain now, and he could feel his spine knitting itself back together.

"I hope Julia can someday do that," said Lady. "I'd be in a wheelchair for life if that had happened to me." She was in Dante's desk chair, with the baby latched to her breast.

"She'll probably heal a lot faster than I do," said Nero. "She's closer to Sparda."

"What do you mean?"

"She's only two generations removed from Sparda," said Nero. "I'm way more than that." He reached the bar and used it to hold himself upright. Yes, this was workable.

"Dante never told me how closely the two of you are related," said Lady.

"Not very. Sparda lived on Fortuna hundreds of years ago. So, Julia and I are cousins, like, maybe a dozen times removed, or however that goes. Dante is my great-great-great-great-great-great uncle or some shit."

"I see." Lady shifted Julia in her arms a bit, while the baby made greedy noises at her breast. "I wouldn't have expected that. You look like you could be Dante's son."

The suggestion washed a weird amalgam of emotions over Nero. "I fucking hope I'm not Dante's son," he said. "I'd be pissed as hell that he dumped me on someone's doorstep." And weirded-out that he was fucking his own father.

"I'm not saying you are. I'm just saying that you look more closely related than that. I don't know. I don't know how demon genes work."

"Neither do I, but Dante swears he wasn't on Fortuna before he came to kill His Holiness, so that leaves just Sparda, hundreds of years ago." Nero guided himself around the bar to reach the refrigerator, and opened a can of beer. What he really wanted was some whiskey, but not while Lady was watching him. "Hey. I'm upright now, so if you want to leave, you can. I don't think I need _bodyguarding_ anymore."

"Trying to get rid of me?" asked Lady, sounding amused.

"Well ..." If Nero were to be honest, he did want Lady to leave. He decided to be honest. "I was hoping to get a good solid nap in before Dante gets home so ... kind of."

"I can be quiet. I could probably use a nap myself."

"What about the baby?"

"The baby is the reason I need a nap," said Lady. "She wakes me up at all hours of the night. Maybe it's the devil blood in her, but it seems like she sleeps more during the day than at night."

Fuck it. Nero decided he didn't care what Lady thought. He finished off the beer and reached under the bar, bending cautiously with one leg extended to do so; the first thing his hand landed on was a bottle of Eagle Rare, so he supposed he was having bourbon today.

When he pulled the bottle out and went fishing in the cupboard for a glass, Lady said, "Should you really be drinking?"

"Why not? It doesn't hurt me." Nero poured himself three fingers of bourbon and knocked it back; it went down easy, and sent a shiver up his healing spine. This was much better shit than the Jack Daniel's. "I have a lot on my mind right now." Then, because he wasn't a complete asshole, he held up the bottle and said, "I guess you're not drinking yet? If you are, I'll pour you one."

Lady gave him a really-now look, and sort of gestured with the baby in her arms. "Nero, I'm breastfeeding here. Of course I don't want to feed Julia whiskey."

"Suit yourself." He poured another glass, and knocked that one back, too.

Then the phone rang, and a flash of panic shot through Nero, nailing him to the spot.

"Devil May Cry," said Lady, having answered the phone while Nero was out of it, as Nero tried to get his breathing under control. He put his left hand to his chest, feeling his heart thump under his sternum, and turned around to put his back to Lady so she wouldn't so easily see whatever was on his face.

"No," said Lady, "I'm sorry but he's out. Sure. Of course. Hang on, let me get a piece of paper. Nero?"

Nero swallowed, found his throat to be dry. "Yeah," he said.

"Where does Dante keep his note pad?"

"Second drawer." Nero kept his back turned, and didn't care how strange that looked. He hoped his voice was steady. It didn't sound fully steady to him.

Lady fumbled around with stuff behind him, and then she said, "Okay, what's the address. And your number? Uh, huh. Right. I don't know, it depends on when someone becomes available. As soon as we can. I just can't give you anything more definite than that. Right. I'll have someone call you as soon as possible. Right. Thank you very much, and I'm sorry. Goodbye." Then, after she hung up the phone, Lady said, "Nero? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," said Nero. His hands were steadying, so he made himself turn back around to face Lady.

She had rearranged Julia so that the baby was now latched to the other breast, and she was giving him the kind of peculiar look that he probably deserved. "What was that about?"

"What was what about?" asked Nero, as though he hadn't just weirdly turned around on her for no apparent reason.

She looked at him for a long moment, before saying, "Are you sure you're okay? You're a little pale."

"I'm fine," he said. "So I guess that was someone in trouble."

"Yes. It's out in the west end. I don't suppose you'd like to take care of it, or are you going to wait for Dante to get back?"

Nero poured another glass of whiskey. "Still about half crippled here."

"I mean after that gets better." She eyed him. "Although with the way you're drinking, it's maybe best that you don't go."

Nero looked at Lady, his eyes carefully on her face and not her semi-exposed breast, and wondered again what she would say if he were just completely honest with her. Probably she'd give him the same kind of song and dance that Dante did, asking him to see a psychiatrist or something.

"I don't want to talk about my drinking," said Nero, and he downed the third glass. He was starting to feel more than a little buzzed, which was nice enough, but it put morbid thoughts back into his mind.

Lady killed demons all the time, or at least she used to before she got pregnant. She didn't use a devil arm, or even a flaming weapon the way Nero did, just firearms usually. And Nero had shot a demon or two to death back in the day. Maybe a gun _would_ be enough to off Nero; it was enough for other demons, at least sometimes. He still had ammo for Blue Rose. Maybe he should just go with that.

The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to do this before Dante got back from looking for Yamato. It no longer seemed worth his time to find somewhere out in the woods; if he could get rid of Lady, he could just go back in the weapon room or something and do it there. Yes, it would upset Dante, and that wasn't optimal, but Nero had just panicked for no fucking reason whatsoever because the phone rang, and he was sick and tired of it.

"All right," said Lady, "but that's not making me worry about you any less."

"Worry all you want. It doesn't matter." Nero put the bottle of bourbon back under the bar and carefully guided himself back around to the couch. "Nothing fucking matters. You can leave whenever you want, too. I'll be fine."

"I told Dante I'd stay until he got home," said Lady.

"And I'm telling you that you don't have to do that."

"If it's all the same, I think I'll keep my promise."

With a lot of pain – but not nearly as much as before – Nero laid back down on the couch and rolled over to put his back to Lady. "Well, if it's all the same _to you,_ I'm going to take a nap."

"Sweet dreams, cowboy."

* * *

Nero's devil bringer woke him, tingling urgently in warning. He was immediately awake and alert, although he figured it was probably just Dante, and if it wasn't it might be something that would kill him instead.

It _was_ just Dante; the front door opened and Nero rolled over in time to see Dante walk through. It was dark outside already, the streetlights pouring dim yellow light in the windows, and Dante looked tired. There was no katana in his hand, not that Nero had actually expected him to find it.

Lady said, "I guess nobody knew anything."

"Nobody knows _anything,"_ said Dante, and he even sounded tired. "I found two nests and none of the devils in either one knew anything."

"Well, you may have another opportunity soon," said Lady, "because a call came in while you were out. It's on the west end, and sounds like multiple demons."

"Oh, beautiful," said Dante, sounding exhausted.

Nero stood up, but didn't say anything. Lady was also on her feet, and she was rocking Julia gently; the baby started to make that strange little creaking noise again, like the precursor to a cry.

"I should get going," she said. "This little monster is going to be up all night now, and you look like you need to sleep."

"I won't disagree with that," said Dante. "But if this other call is an emergency ..."

"It didn't sound like one. I think it'll wait until tomorrow." Lady glanced over her shoulder at Nero, and he looked away, not wanting to meet her gaze. "Unless you want me to give it to Trish ...?"

"No, I'll do it. Do you need help getting Julia into the car?"

"If you don't mind."

They went outside together with the baby and Lady's bag of baby supplies, and Nero drifted to the window to watch them load Julia into the car seat.

So Lady's unintentional suicide watch had succeeded; Nero was still here. He supposed he had a little time now, and could fetch Blue Rose and eat a pair of bullets before Dante got back into the building, but that seemed like too much effort right at this moment. His alcoholic buzz was gone, and he just felt tired, like he hadn't slept enough.

Maybe tomorrow things would go differently. Maybe tomorrow he would be left alone.

His back no longer hurt; the nap had cured that, at least. Through the window, Nero heard Dante and Lady laugh, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. They got the baby and all the stuff into the car, and then Lady leaned in as though looking for a kiss; Dante gave her one, but on the forehead.

Even that chaste contact made Nero's teeth clench.

He was waiting at the door when Dante came back inside, and once the door was closed he folded himself into Dante's embrace. Dante put his arms around Nero's waist easily enough, and he gave Nero a kiss on the forehead, too.

"Hey, kid. You all better now?"

"Yeah," said Nero. He rested his cheek against Dante's shoulder, and gave his lover a kiss on the side of the neck. "All healed up and ready to do absolutely nothing again."

"That's perfectly fine, and you know it." Dante nuzzled Nero's hair, and said, "Lady asked me where you sleep. I told her you were still on the couch but you keep your stuff upstairs for ... some ... reason?" He laughed a little.

"That's not totally wrong," said Nero. They did sleep apart frequently now, whenever Nero didn't feel like having sex, which was more and more often, although it was Nero in bed and Dante on the couch when that occurred.

"I sort of want to tell her about us."

"No," said Nero. He didn't want anyone to know.

"I won't, don't worry. But I still kind of want to. I think she'd be okay with it, and she'd stop bothering me about who I'm dating."

"No," said Nero again. "She'll think I'm gay."

Dante kissed him, and said, "There are worse things than being gay, kid."

Nero knew that, and really it didn't matter in the end because nothing mattered anymore. He just wasn't ready to have that conversation with Lady or anyone. That was only marginally a more desirable conversation than the one about his mental health. "No," he said yet again, and didn't feel a need to elaborate further.

Standing here tucked against Dante's body felt really nice, though, and Nero started to feel guilty for wanting to kill himself right here in Devil May Cry and leaving his remains for Dante to find. That would be an honestly shitty thing to do to someone who loved him so much. No, his original plan to just disappear was the much better one, and Nero decided right there that he at least wouldn't kill himself where Dante would be the one to find him. If nothing else, he ought to do it where someone else would find him first, like maybe an alley or something, and Dante would get the news before seeing him and would at least be prepared for it.

The decision brought a modicum of peace to Nero, and he kissed Dante back. "Speaking of sleeping on the couch," said Nero, "I want you upstairs tonight."

"With you, or ...?"

"With me."

"Are you up to it?"

They hadn't had sex for almost a week now, and Dante had to be itching for it. Nero was more ambivalent, but he knew his body would get in gear quickly enough, because the _need_ was still there. The friction that they sparked in one another was still there. And something in Nero wanted to be with Dante right now, for what would probably be the last time. "Yes," he said. "I'm all better."

So Dante turned down all the lights while Nero locked the door, and then they went upstairs together. When Dante tried to flip on the upstairs light Nero stopped him, and stepped into his arms in the darkness instead.

"Kiss me," said Nero, "like you mean it." Dante complied with a fierce and consuming kiss.

They shed clothes while slowly shuffling toward the bed: jackets dropping first, then shirts, then pants unfastened and hands going down inside them. As he'd expected, Nero had a solid erection by the time Dante's fingers checked for one, and Dante moaned into his mouth with desire.

Dante's hands ran over Nero's hips and rear, holding Nero close to him, and Nero for his part slid his devil bringer up Dante's back. He didn't want his lover out of his mind for this, so he didn't claw, but he let the tips of his talons gently scratch until Dante hissed with pleasure and locked their hips together. The feel of Dante's cock, hard and unyielding against Nero's groin, woke the passion in Nero that he'd been missing until now, and he returned the wet moan.

This, at least, made him feel alive, alive and wanted, desired for what he was instead of what he ought to be. Dante did accept him even in his broken state, Nero would grant that, and had never suggested that he was fed up with Nero's incapacity. It was Nero who couldn't accept it anymore, Nero who was fed up.

This would probably be their last time together, and Nero wanted Dante to remember it with affection, so as Dante's tongue moved to the side of his neck Nero brought up his claws and scratched a line of blood. Dante groaned, his hands going up Nero's bare back to clutch the younger man close as he lapped at the oozing blood.

"Yes," said Nero. He wished he could claw a gaping wound in the side of his neck for Dante to drink. He thought back to Dante triggered, fangs in his neck, leathery hide pressed against his body, energy pouring through him as his own trigger fought to keep him alive. He wished he hadn't brought Yamato to that encounter. He could have died right there, at Dante's hands. Nero brought his devil bringer up to the other side of his neck and inflicted a deep puncture, then guided Dante's mouth to it.

"Mmmmph," said Dante, and then he whispered around the blood, "Don't hurt yourself."

Nero couldn't promise not to do that, so he said nothing, just put a hand to the back of Dante's head to hold him in place. Dante moaned and sucked hard, tonguing the wound to keep the blood flowing, and Nero pulled them both down onto the bed.

Nero got his pants off as soon as he was horizontal, and then worked on pushing down Dante's. Dante didn't want to move, wanted to keep licking Nero's blood, so Nero was only able to get the older hunter's pants down to his knees before Dante stopped cooperating. A hand went through Nero's hair, and then cupped the back of his neck to hold him in place, and Nero whispered again, "Yes." He dropped a hand to Dante's erection, gave it a long stroke, and Dante growled against his neck.

The only thing that would make this perfect would be for Nero to get a taste of Dante's blood in exchange. Dante's blood tasted like power, and Nero only ever got a tiny sample. He wanted a proper taste, and this seemed like the right time to ask for one; it was the last time Nero would be able to ask. The worst Dante could say was no.

"Dante," he whispered, and then repeated it until Dante grunted in acknowledgement. "Can I cut you a little?"

Dante lifted himself, licking while he said, "Why?"

"I want to taste you."

"Mmmm." Dante seemed to think it over, and then said, "Why not."

So Nero reached over Dante's shoulder and carefully drew his index talon over the curve of skin and, before Dante could change his mind, closed his mouth over the wound.

The blood tasted a little sour, a lot metallic, and it lit up Nero's tongue with the sheer power of it. He couldn't resist; he shifted his position under Dante to get a better latch on the cut and moaned with lust as he swallowed the first trickle of blood. Dante was still lapping at his throat, making soft little animal sounds as he did, and Nero knew he was making similar sounds himself but he couldn't help it. Dante tasted amazing, like fireworks, and Nero put a leg behind Dante's knee to hold him in place as he rocked his hips up into his lover's.

Eventually the flow of blood slowed, and Dante and Nero both moved to kiss, and all Nero could taste was blood mingling on their tongues. All he could feel was Dante's body, pressed against his own, their erections trapped between them. Dante ground their hips together, rubbing their cocks simultaneously, and Nero gasped with the sensation.

"Fuck me," he whispered against Dante's lips. "But Dante ..."

"Hmmm?" Dante nipped Nero's lower lip.

"Go slow. Okay?"

"Okay."

Nero got a condom and lubricant from the bedside table and got both onto Dante, and then rolled over onto his belly. Dante put his feet on the floor and dropped his pants the rest of the way, then tugged Nero to slide to the edge of the bed. Nero complied, spreading his knees to cooperate as Dante's hands went down on the bed on either side of him, and he made a pleased sound when he felt Dante's erection nudge between his buttocks.

The glorious part was that he _felt_ right now, alive and in love and like the world was not the hellscape it was during his normal life. Dante pushed slowly into him, going easy with it, and Nero arched his back to make it easier yet. He could still taste blood on his tongue, although the zing of it was gone, and Dante's cock inside him was incredible, invading his body in all the right ways. His devil bringer glowed in the dim light coming through the windows, brilliant blue-white.

Dante did as he was asked: he went slow, rocking himself in and out of Nero in long, smooth strokes. Nero moved until he was in a position where each of Dante's thrusts struck that especially pleasurable spot inside him, dragging a cry from his throat with each one. It was exactly what he wanted, exactly what he wanted Dante to remember once he was gone, and Nero bit down on the bedspread under him to stifle his noises. The motion of Dante's body rubbed Nero's cock against the blanket in small motions; eventually Nero could take that no longer, and reached under himself with his left hand to wrap around his erection. This way, he got firm strokes instead of teasing ones.

It didn't take much longer after that for Nero to come against the mattress, his body clenching on the intrusion and pleasure rocking through his pelvis. Dante kept moving inside him, motions becoming shorter now, sharper, as he pursued his own orgasm, and Nero just rolled with it, almost out of his mind with how unbelievable it felt to be fucked after he'd already come.

Nothing could last forever, and presently Dante came as well, leaning hard over Nero's back and making rough sounds against Nero's shoulder. After a moment, Nero felt Dante's tongue against his shoulder blade, licking at the sweat on his skin.

After a few minutes, Dante pulled his softened cock out of Nero and disposed of the condom in the wastebasket, then rolled Nero over and crawled atop him to lay sideways on the bed. "I love you so much," said Dante, and his voice was full of warmth and affection.

Yes, this was the memory Nero wanted Dante to carry with him, forward into the rest of his life. Nero put his arms around Dante's shoulders, and pulled him down to lay against him, while a painful hard spot formed in behind his sternum. When he was gone, Dante would go back to Lady, which was really the way things ought to be, and Nero just hoped that Dante would remember his brief year-long fling with Nero with some measure of fondness and not as a painful interruption in his long relationship with Lady. But maybe this one last encounter would help settle things.

"Hey," said Dante, gently, with a kiss to Nero's chest. "What's the matter?" And it was only then that Nero realized that his breath was catching in his throat and Dante had noticed.

"Nothing," he said, but it was too late; Dante rolled over onto his back and pulled Nero with him, so that the younger man was on top of him. Dante ran his hands through the clipped hair on either side of Nero's head and looked up at him.

"What's the matter?" asked Dante, and Nero had to drop his head to rest his forehead against Dante's collarbone just to avoid looking him in the eye. How could he convey that this was an important night, that this was their _last_ night together, without saying why?

For a moment, right then, Nero didn't really want to die. It was the only way he could see out of the dark and gray world in which he lived, but he loved Dante, and Dante loved him, and maybe that could be enough? Maybe he should tell Dante what was happening in his head, that he couldn't bear to live this way anymore, and see if Dante could come up with a different solution.

Without really intending for it to happen, Nero found that pain inside his chest expanding, until it caught his breath again and when he exhaled it sounded suspiciously like a sob.

"Shhh," said Dante, and he stroked a hand up Nero's back. "It's okay."

"It's not okay," said Nero, before he could stop himself. But maybe he shouldn't stop himself, he thought. Maybe he should say something. Maybe Dante could _help_ him find a way out of this black hole of despair. "I, ah ..."

"Did I hurt you?" said Dante. "I'm sorry."

"No," said Nero. "You didn't hurt me. I'm sorry, I'm ..."

He broke off, unsure what to say. He didn't want this to be the last time he slept with Dante. This was the one thing in the world he didn't want to give up: Dante's embrace, Dante's love, Dante's everything in moments like this one. Was this enough to live for?

Nero remembered his little panic attack that afternoon, and he remembered breaking down utterly during the fight with Surgot and Exultans, and he choked down the tears that were threatening to break through from the painful spot in his chest.

"I'm so worthless," said Nero, finally, a hint of courage coming to him, just enough to say it.

"You're not worthless," said Dante immediately.

"I had a panic attack this afternoon. Because the phone rang."

"Oh, Nero," said Dante, it sounded like his heart was breaking. "That doesn't make you worthless. You're worth everything to me."

That was it; that was too much. The despair boiled over and Nero started to cry onto Dante's chest, weak, desperate little sobs that left wetness on Dante's skin. Dante rubbed his back and shusshed him, but didn't say anything to interrupt as Nero cried.

"I'm worthless," said Nero again, through the tears, choking on every breath. "I'm pathetic and I can't do anything right anymore. I fall apart when it matters the most."

"That's not true," said Dante, but it _was_ true, and Nero knew he was just saying that.

Dante couldn't help. And here Nero had ruined the good memory he'd built of their last night in one another's arms by going and crying all over him. He would not, himself, miss Dante at all, because he was going to be dead and death was the end of everything, but he allowed that probably Dante would miss him. That only made him cry harder, knowing that he would be missed.

"Hey, hey," said Dante, and he kissed the top of Nero's head. "Hey, it's okay. You're not worthless, Nero. I love you. You're not pathetic. I don't know how to tell you other than to just tell you." He put his arms around Nero's shoulders and pulled him into a tight embrace.

Nero shook his head, but he couldn't speak anymore without breaking down further and so he just let Dante speak soothing platitudes in his ear while he sobbed himself into silence.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More suicidal ideation in this chapter. Also, some gruesome demon work about halfway through. It's pretty gruesome.
> 
> Thanks to [JustVisible](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustVisible/pseuds/JustVisible) for helping with this chapter.

"Do you want to come along today?" asked Dante, as he came out of the shower.

Nero was behind the bar, wondering if he wanted to make a screwdriver or just suffer through raw vodka. "No," he said. "Thanks anyway."

"I think it would be good for you." Dante's hair was almost gray when it was wet, and he hadn't bothered to shave in a couple of days so he looked a bit like a scraggly old man.

Screwdriver sounded way better. Nero went into the fridge for some orange juice, and then found a glass in the cupboard. "I'd rather just hang out here today," he said.

Dante came over to the bar and leaned against it, watching Nero pull out the vodka and measure it out into the glass. After a moment he said, "You know, it's somewhere around nine-AM, kid."

"You know what they say," said Nero. "It's five-o'clock somewhere." He filled the glass the rest of the way with orange juice, and then set the juice on the bar counter.

"But it's not five-o'clock _here,"_ said Dante.

"Are you going to come back here and stop me drinking this?"

Dante just shook his head, and Nero drank the whole glass in one go. As he stood there trying to decide if he wanted a second, Dante said, "I want you to come with me, so maybe being sober would be a good idea for you."

"I'm not coming."

"Yes, you are. You're cooped up in here way too much. You need air and you need to fucking kill something, kid."

Nero laughed a bitter little laugh, because he was planning to kill _something,_ all right, he just needed a little privacy for it. "My own gun sets me off," he said.

"Use your sword. Come on, Nero. Please. Humor me."

"No," said Nero. "I'm not coming."

"I really want you to."

"I don't care."

Dante laid a hand on the bar decisively. "Then I'm giving this one to Trish."

This was so irritating. Nero wanted to be _alone_ so he could steal out of the shop later and go find a convenient alley to die in without anyone trying to stop him. It was almost like Dante knew, or something. Nero felt so stupid for crying all over the man the night before. He'd given away his mental state, obviously.

Some part of him, though, was gratified that he was being thwarted. "You don't have to give it to Trish," he said. He could afford to be patient, he supposed. Death wasn't going anywhere. "I'll go with you, if you need help that bad."

Dante smiled, a relieved kind of smile that Nero honestly wanted to kiss, because he was, in a way, a little relieved himself. Maybe an opportunity would present itself sometime today, but if it didn't ... so be it. This alleviated some of the pressure on Nero to figure out a way to kill himself while doing the least amount of damage to Dante; he could admit, easily, that doing the least amount of damage involved surviving.

So he didn't go for a second screwdriver, but instead poured a glass of orange juice for Dante, and said, "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Whatever you're making," said Dante, so Nero decided to go for sausage and eggs.

As he heated up the pan on the hot plate, Nero said, "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere on Twenty-second Street. I don't know, Lady wrote down the whole address. I guess I should go call them and let them know we'll be there in an hour or so."

"Probably."

So Dante went to do that, and Nero fried up some sausage and cracked three eggs for his lover, and he wondered if he was going to survive this after all. If maybe Dante's affection was worth it.

Today, at least, Nero wanted to have hope. He didn't, but he wanted to.

* * *

The neighborhood with the demons was exactly the kind of neighborhood where one might expect to find demons: small houses on small lots, maintenance problems, overgrown grass, likely mostly full of renters with absentee landlords siphoning all the wealth out of the place. It looked like the kind of place that would have been a desirable working-class neighborhood a hundred years earlier, but it certainly wasn't that now. At night, this area must have looked a nightmare.

Dante pulled up the convertible in front of the correct address and Nero opened the door to step out. The house was ordinary for the block, painted brown with white accents ... there was a lot of detail in the cornices and the columns that held up the porch roof that spoke of better times in the house's past.

There was a faint scent of rot in the air, though. Dante smelled it, too; his face wrinkled as he, too, got out of the car.

"This is definitely the place," said Dante.

Nero retrieved his sword from the back seat and double-checked the fuel level. It felt a little strange to have it in his hand, but at the same time so perfectly natural and normal that he wondered briefly why he'd become a hermit.

Oh, wait. He recalled the flashbacks. That was why.

There didn't seem to be any humans living here, at least. Dante went up to knock at the door, and although no one answered Dante soon pulled out Ivory and held the gun angled downward as he looked back toward Nero.

"Back door," Dante mouthed silently, and Nero nodded.

The side yard was cut off with a privacy fence, which Nero easily vaulted over; the rear yard was entirely fenced-in, overgrown with tall grass and weeds, and it absolutely stank of rot. Nero moved sideways along a paved path that led to the back door, Red Queen at the ready, his devil bringer glowing.

The source of the overwhelming rot in the back yard was a body in the grass, the hollowed-out shell of what had undoubtedly been a human being. Only the bones and scraps of flesh were left, the ribcage broken open and all the internal organs gone. The face had partially rotted away, which was fortunate because Nero really didn't want to know what kind of expression this person had had when they'd died.

It was no wonder someone had called this in. The stench probably carried over the entire block.

Nero could have waited until Dante signaled somehow, but he was feeling reckless today so he kicked in the rear door as soon as he reached it. He found himself in the kitchen, and could barely breathe for the fetor in there; the reek of rotting flesh coated his nose and tongue and seemed to stand almost visibly in the air.

Gunfire echoed through the building, and a moment later Nero was slamming a demon to the floor with his devil bringer. It hissed and clawed, but he kept it pinned.

"You don't happen to know anything about a sword named Yamato, do you?" he asked, not because he thought it would, or cared much, but because he knew that was what Dante wanted to know.

"I'll kill you," the devil seethed. It twisted in Nero's grip, and failed to break it. "Let me go and fight me face to face!"

"Maybe I'll think about doing that if you tell me where Yamato is right now."

Another demon came crashing through the door to the kitchen, and Nero had to release the one he'd caught to defend himself from this one, catching its claws on Red Queen and then slashing hard with the sword across its face. The one he'd captured rose to its feet and attacked him as well, and Nero decided to keep it alive and simply slammed it back to the floor with his devil bringer once again. It writhed and clawed at the floor.

"Yamato," Nero said again. The second devil was still thrashing, but Nero thought it probably was not going to survive. Those looked like death throes. "Ya. Ma. To. Do you know anything about it?"

"One of Sparda's old swords," hissed the devil. "What do you expect me to say? Let me up, fight me fairly!"

"You don't know anything about it being stolen recently, do you? Like, the past couple of days. Or maybe you know something about a really powerful demon, about in Dante's league."

"I don't know anything I'd tell you," said the devil.

Dante came through the kitchen door, then, Rebellion in his hand and gory. "Oh, you caught one," he said. "Good work, I had to kill the rest."

"So far it's refused to tell me anything," said Nero. "I was about to start breaking its fingers."

"No need," said Dante, and he fired Ebony down at the pinned devil's leg. It screamed in agony, flailing on the floor. "Tell me what I need to know or I'll kill you, a piece at a time," said Dante coldly.

"I don't know anything!" screamed the demon. "Do you want me to make something up? Okay, a devil came through town a week ago, killing everyone he met, and I guess he had Yamato with him ..."

"This is useless," said Nero, and he crushed the demon's face to the floor before standing up. "Just kill it, Dante."

But Dante instead knocked the demon back down with Rebellion through its back, saying, "I don't want you to make something up. I want you to tell me about Yamato."

"I thought _you_ had Yamato!" shrieked the demon.

"Well, I don't anymore," said Dante. "Where is it now? How can I find it?"

"I thought you had it!"

"It doesn't know anything," said Nero. "You're just torturing it now."

"Yeah, I guess," said Dante. He put Ebony to the back of the demon's head, and while it screamed he pumped two bullets into it.

That was all the demons, really, but Dante wanted to check the rest of the building to find out where the smell was coming from, and that was how they ended up in the basement facing the most gruesome thing Nero had ever seen.

"I'm um ..." said Nero, looking away quickly so as not to take in more than necessary. "I'm going to go call 911."

"Yeah," said Dante. "This one is still alive. Hurry up."

Nero darted back up the stairs, bile in the back of his throat and his mind full of the horror in the basement, the two human beings – one of them still alive! – who had been eaten from the inside-out by demon spawn. He threw himself out the back door and retched a little beside the house, spitting up what remained of his breakfast. One of them was still alive. Still alive. With a demon spawn inside her, gnawing at her organs, the repulsive slimy grub of it visible through the hollowed-out flaps of skin that had been her belly.

Once he felt he had his stomach under control, Nero leapt the fence and ran to the next-door neighbor, so he could use their phone.

* * *

The rest of the day was taken up by police officers, EMTs, and even a fire engine showed up to help catalogue the living and the dead.

It became clear quite soon that the one woman who was still alive in the basement was not going to be that way for long. She was too far gone, too much of her eaten away, too many organs already missing. The EMTs rushed her out, but Nero heard the police talking about it as he waited for Dante to finish up reporting in to them.

This was Nero's fault. What if he'd come out here to clean out the devils yesterday, when the call came in? He might have been able to save her.

Dante handled the cops, as he always did, talking at length with the officer in charge. One of them got Nero to make a statement as well, but he kept his description of his role short and succinct, seeing as how he did very little.

He could have done so much more, if he weren't fucked up in the head, or if he'd just spent less of yesterday planning his suicide and more of it here, killing demons. Nero spent a good couple of hours sitting on the curb, feeling angry and horrified at himself. There were good reasons why he didn't devil hunt anymore, but they all looked pretty selfish to him right now. What did that woman who had spent an entire extra, unnecessary night being chewed by demon spawn care about his flashbacks? About his depression? What she cared about was her life, and how she'd lost it horribly because of Nero's inaction.

Eventually a hand landed on his shoulder, and Dante said, "Come on, kid. We're done here."

"Right." Nero swung himself to his feet, and followed Dante to the car. It was now mid-afternoon, and a cool breeze had sprung up that carried the scents of dying leaves and, somewhere not too far away, a wood fire, mixing uncomfortably with the lingering smell of rot. They both got into the car and Dante started it, weaving around the emergency vehicles parked all up the street to get out of the neighborhood.

Nero was silent for the first ten minutes of the ride home, and Dante also said nothing, and finally Nero couldn't take it anymore. "You can say it if you want to," he said over the rush of the wind.

"Say what?"

"That I should have come out here yesterday when the call came in."

"I wasn't going to say that."

"But you should!" Nero slouched in the seat, angry at himself. "I was just sitting at home doing fucking _nothing_ when Lady took that call. I should have gone right out to take care of it. Those demons weren't even hard to kill! They were practically nothing! And then maybe that woman ..." He couldn't say it.

"You didn't know that," said Dante. Calmly. Rationally. "You didn't know she was there."

"It doesn't matter. I should have come yesterday. I should have."

Dante went silent, and the lack of accusation from that side of the vehicle was somehow more damning than anything Dante could have said. To Nero's thinking, Dante said nothing because there was nothing to say. There was no excuse for Nero's inaction, no way to take back what hadn't been done.

They got back home and Dante parked around the corner in his usual spot. Nero went to open his door, but was halted when Dante turned and put a hand on his shoulder. "Nero," said Dante. "This wasn't your doing."

"I know."

Dante wasn't finished. "You didn't know. But ... I know how you're feeling and ... it's not exactly wrong, but it's not right either. If you'd come here yesterday ... maybe you could have saved her. Maybe I could have, if I hadn't been out looking for Yamato, or if I'd gone out on this job as soon as I got home instead of waiting for today. There are a lot of should-have-beens."

Yamato. There was another source of recrimination for Nero, because if he'd had Yamato safely in his devil bringer, instead of hanging in the weapon room, it couldn't have been stolen in the first place. So mainly what he gathered was that yes, Dante could have done some things differently, but about three-quarters of the things that could have been done differently were Nero's fault.

"Right," said Nero, shrugging away from Dante's hand. "I get it."

"Nero," said Dante again, but Nero ignored him, got out of the car, and dragged Red Queen out of the back seat to carry around the corner to the front door.

There was someone there, waiting at the locked door. Morrison and a stranger, a tall gentleman with coiling black body tattoos, carrying an open book and a cane. Nero hefted Red Queen over his shoulder as he approached.

"Can I help you?" he asked the stranger.

"I hope so," said the man, without looking up from his book.

"This is Nero," said Morrison. Then, to Nero, "Where's Dante?"

"He's coming." Nero fished his keys out of his pocket and went to unlock the door. "Sorry if you've been waiting a while."

"We just got here," said the stranger.

Nero got the door unlocked and opened it, saying, "Come on in, I guess."

Morrison and the stranger followed Nero in; Dante was not far behind. He paused just inside the door, taking in the visitors, and then said, "So, tell me, who is this?"

"Your new client," said Morrison, fanning himself with his hat. "Cash up front. It's a big job."

"Sounding good so far," said Dante, taking a seat behind his desk. "How big?"

"Big enough that I don't think you can afford to stay behind for this one, Nero," said Morrison.

Nero didn't reply to that at first, just flopped down on the couch. He hadn't ignited Red Queen during the fight with the devils, so he just had to run a cloth over the blade to remove the devil blood and wipe on a touch of oil. "We'll see," he muttered.

Morrison just waved his hat and turned to leave, "It's too bad Lady's out of commission, but I'll go get Trish in on this."

"Trish, too?" Dante frowned.

Morrison just repeated, "Big job," as he left, leaving the two alone with their new client.

Nero felt Dante looking his way, but wasn't going to meet his eyes. He just kept working over Red Queen. As far as he was concerned, there was no such thing as a mission Dante couldn't handle on his own.

Dante shifted his attention back to the man standing by the door, "So, what's your name?"

The stranger put a finger to the page in his book, and seemed to read from it. "I have no name ... I am but two days old ..." Then he smiled and snapped the book shut. "Just kidding. You can call me V."

"Nice to meet you, V," said Nero, not really meaning it.

"So, what's the job?" asked Dante.

"A powerful demon is about to resurrect," said V. His voice was smooth, betraying very little emotion at this worldshaking-sounding news, which led Nero to think that this was probably an exaggeration. "And ... we need your help. Both of you."

Nero snorted. "I think you'll be fine with just Dante's help."

"This is not a foe you should underestimate," said V, tapping his cane on the floor, and leaning heavily on it as he walked slowly towards where Dante was seated. "This is the demon you've been searching for. The one who took Yamato and hurt your friend. He's gained a great deal of power from it."

That got Nero's attention, and, if Dante's narrowed eyes were any indication, Dante's as well. Nero demanded, "How do you know about that?"

V flashed Nero a lopsided smirk, one sly enough that it kind of brought back memories of Exultans. "Dante hasn't been very ... discreet ... in his search."

"That's a good question," Dante said, voice low. Then he raised it, and said, "What else can you tell me about this demon? Does it have a name?"

V nodded solemnly. "Urizen."

"Yeah, I'm not familiar."

"You wouldn't be." V said it so quietly under his breath that Nero almost didn't hear him, but then he continued, "He's already made his first moves in Red Grave City. You'll have to face him there, before he drains the life out of every resident to further his goal."

"His goal being ...?"

"Power."

"Of course."

"I'm staying behind," said Nero, putting Red Queen away in its case. "You don't need me for this."

"I don't know," said Dante, eyeing V. "Maybe I do."

"Maybe you do," V agreed, looking over at Nero.

He was staring at Nero's devil bringer with a strange sort of expression, one that almost looked like ... longing. Nero, self-conscious, turned slightly to conceal his glowing hand, but then wondered why he should. It wasn't like V was particularly one to judge, with his lace up vest, silver cane and rippling body tattoos. In the end, it didn't matter to Nero what he thought. He ostentatiously stretched that arm, the bony protuberance at his elbow flexing.

Maybe with Dante gone on this mission, saving lives, Nero could have some peace to think some more about what he wanted to do with himself. If this job was so incredibly important, maybe Lady _should_ go with; Julia could be handed off to a babysitter. Then, without a chaperone, Nero could think about whether he wanted to test his theory about Blue Rose.

As much as he was just done with living with himself, however, the thought of offing himself sent an unexpected and unwelcome shot of guilt through him. He'd failed that woman by sitting around doing nothing except planning his own death. If Nero were more himself, he would have dashed right out to deal with those demons as soon as the call came in. Maybe he could have saved her.

A very unwelcome memory of the woman's body, bound helplessly, the cut flaps of skin in her belly moving with the sickening grub writhing beneath them, rose in Nero's mind and made him almost retch again.

"You said the demon is in Red Grave?" Dante asked.

"Yes."

"Why there?"

"I doubt it particularly matters where he chooses to plant the seed. Only that you stop him before it bears fruit."

Dante blew out a long breath, and looked over at the photo of Trish on his desk, the one where she was dressed in an old-fashioned gown. He caught his lip on one canine tooth and began to chew it.

V tipped his head, hiding his eyes behind his fringe of black hair as he turned to leave, "I'll ask that you prepare quickly, Dante. Time is not your friend. I'll be back tomorrow morning, and we should leave then." He strolled with surprising grace across the office, despite his weak stature, and pushed the door open with his cane, but before he left, he threw one last statement over his shoulder. "I hope you'll reconsider your decision, Nero."

Then the door closed behind him.

After a moment Dante stood up. "You should come on this one."

"If it's as bad as he says, it's best if I don't."

"Nero ..."

"No!" With a sudden burst of anger, Nero slammed his fist on the coffee table. It surprised him, because it came over him so suddenly, but then it faded just as quickly. "No," he repeated, softly this time. "I'll just get in your way. I'm ..."

He didn’t bother finishing that. He was tired. His head hurt. 

"Well, if you're not coming," said Dante as he picked up the phone, "I'm calling Lady to hold down the fort with you."

"No," said Nero. "I don't need a babysitter anymore."

"She doesn't mind, kid."

"I mind."

"Tough shit."

Nero didn't bother fighting him further over it, not seeing the point anymore. Instead he got up and went over to the bar. He just stood there, though, with his hands clasped on the counter, without even the energy to pour himself a drink.

This was very inconvenient timing. Everything about this was inconvenient from the very start, from that demon coming in to interrupt his suicidal plans two days ago to Lady coming over again to interrupt them now. And now he had something else to hate himself over, because that woman was probably in the hospital right now, dying, beyond saving.

This big job ... it definitely sounded like something Nero would have helped with once upon a time. And maybe, once upon a time, he would have been worth beans on a job like that, but he certainly wasn't today. This wasn't like the demons out on Twenty-second Street, simple, weak things that even Nero in his impaired state could have handled. This sounded like something Nero could seriously screw up if he got involved, just by being there. He could get Dante killed.

Sometimes it still came to him in dreams: Dante with his throat cut, lying apparently lifeless in Nero's arms, eyes sightlessly staring into space. Dante had almost died there, and it had been Nero's fault.

That was the biggest crime of all, wasn't it? He'd let Dante feel responsible for him. He was a liability. Just dead weight.

He listened in and out of Dante talking on the phone and could tell that it was Lady on the other end. Talking to a new mother and getting her to spare her precious fucking time to watch a grown ass man. He closed his eyes and tried to will away the ache clawing at the backs of his eyes. It didn't work; if anything, it made the headache worse.

Dante hung up the phone and then chewed on his thumb as he looked at the picture of Trish. "Red Grave," he said. "Not anxious to go back there."

"You've had jobs in Red Grave before," said Nero.

"Not big ones." Dante picked up the photo and looked at it more closely.

It was on the tip of Nero's tongue to ask how they even knew this was as big a job as V claimed when he looked down at his hand, at the brilliant glow of it. It had glowed like this when that demon was here; the thing that had taken Yamato was powerful, near or at Dante's degree of power.

He wished he weren't so fucked up. He wished he were reliable, and didn't have flashbacks or freeze-ups when the chips came down. He wished he could have Dante's back, and be trustworthy with that responsibility.

Trish was going to have to take that position for him, Nero supposed. Trish was a capable devil hunter, and would likely do a great job.

Nero went around the bar and groped around in the cupboard until his hand landed on a bottle, and without even bothering to look he poured himself a glass of whatever was in it.

* * *

Lady arrived the next morning, and had brought a small suitcase of clothes and several huge bags of baby supplies; only when she began unloading the bags out of her car did Nero realize that she intended to stay here at Devil May Cry multiple days. That was both infuriating and depressing; Dante knew, Nero was sure of it now.

Nero and Dante both told her that it was fine if she stayed upstairs in the bedroom, so Dante and Nero carried her baggage upstairs. As Nero put some of the bags of baby stuff into the closet where it would be out of the way, Dante came up behind him and put his arms around Nero's waist.

"Dante," said Nero, uncomfortable. "Don't."

"You can be mad at me," said Dante, "but please don't take it out on Lady, okay?" He kissed the back of Nero's neck, and released the younger man.

"I won't. And I _am_ mad at you. I don't need a fucking babysitter."

"Maybe Lady needs the babysitter, did you think of that?"

"Hah," said Nero. He turned around to face his lover, frowning, but without much energy behind it. Dante was cocking him a sad kind of half-smile.

 _I know you know._ Something along those lines burned the back of Nero's throat, longing to come out in words. _I know that you know I want to die._ Without really thinking about it, Nero took a half-step forward to close the distance and slid his arms into Dante's coat. Dante pulled him close with hands on his shoulders, tucking Nero's head against the crook of his neck.

"I love you," Dante whispered.

"I know," said Nero softly. Was that enough?

"I don't know if you understand how much. Nero, I don't know if I could live without you. I don't want to try."

Something inside Nero broke at this confession, and he pressed his face against Dante's shoulder, trying like hell not to break down right there on the spot. Dante slid one hand up into Nero's hair, saying, "If you don't want to come, I can't make you, but I want to see you here when I get back."

Nero laughed a little, with no amusement. "Where else would I be?"

"I don't know. But I want you here when I get back."

 _I'll be here._ What would it take for Nero to say that? He wanted to say it. He wanted to promise. It felt so good to be pressed against Dante's body, like everything would be okay, eventually, if he just pushed through it.

He couldn't say it. He couldn't promise. "I don't know where else I would be," he said, weakly, and he pulled back, out of the embrace. His face was a little wet; he wiped the moisture off quickly on his sleeve. Before Dante could say anything else, Nero turned around and walked out of the room, going back downstairs.

While they were up there, V had arrived, and was now standing near the jukebox with Lady, talking quietly. They both looked up as Nero emerged, and Nero just sighed.

"Hello again," said V. He leaned on his cane; Lady was standing just out of easy touching distance with Julia napping against her shoulder. "Are we all ready to go?"

"I'm ready," said Dante from behind Nero. He skipped down the stairs and went behind the desk to retrieve Rebellion and his guns.

V then glanced Nero's way, and Nero found he couldn't meet the man's dark green eyes. "I haven't changed my mind," said Nero.

"That's too bad. Well, I suppose it's just the three of us, then. Trish said she would meet us in Red Grave."

"I don't think we need her," said Dante, "but whatever. I'm not splitting the fee, though."

"You don't need to. I'm paying her separately."

Dante then turned and gave Nero a kind of crooked smile and a jaunty little salute, and said, "See you later, kid. Remember what I told you."

"Whatever," said Nero, sitting down on the couch. He had a weird feeling that he wasn't going to see Dante ever again, that he was going to claw his way out of this pit with Blue Rose before Dante returned, and that made him want to at least kiss his lover goodbye. But not with V and Lady watching, so he just looked down at his hands while Dante left the building.

Lady turned around once Dante and V were gone, patting Julia gently on the back. "So where has Dante stuck his TV? If I'm going to stay here, I need to be able to watch my shows."

"I think it's in the closet behind the weapon room," said Nero. He stood up, a sort of numb non-feeling filling his chest as he went to look for it. "You know you don't have to stay here."

"I told Dante I would, so here I am. Besides, Nero, you need company. You can't just read books all day with nobody here. That's depressing."

Nero turned and gave her the best approximation of a glare that he could manage right now. "Maybe I'll get a cat. How about that? Then I'll have company and you don't have to stay."

She just smiled at him, gently enough. "I don't mind staying."

Whatever. Nero went back to the closet to see if he could find the TV.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another content warning for suicidal ideation.
> 
> BTW, I appreciate all the concern for my wellbeing, but I am not in danger, dear readers.

It was difficult for Nero to read with the television going, so eventually he stopped trying and just looked at the book with his eyes unfocused, half-thinking and half-listening to Lady's show.

Lady, it turned out, had become addicted to soap operas. She was currently watching _The Young and the Restless_ while feeding Julia, although how she could follow it on Dante's grainy fourteen-inch television, set up on the desk for her, was beyond Nero. Occasionally she would speak back to the program, telling someone, "No!" or, "Don't trust him," or, "You know that didn't happen." It was such an ordinary pastime, these shows, something Nero wouldn't have expected Lady to pick up.

So now Nero had some choices to make. With Dante gone for probably at least the next couple of days, and Lady likely oblivious to Nero's state of mind, he could probably slip out whenever he wanted. He was tempted to do it now, to simply leave and tell her that he was going to pick up beer or something, just to see if he could get away with it. A test run, so to speak. He didn't have to bring Blue Rose with him this time. Lady was breastfeeding and wouldn't try to come with him. She probably didn't even know that he rarely left the building, and wouldn't find it unusual for him to leave now.

Closing the book and setting it down on the table, Nero stood up and stretched, and, with a nonchalance he hoped covered the nervous thumping of his heart, said, "I think I'll go grab some beer. Do you want anything?"

"Maybe," said Lady, eyes on the TV. "Do you have any sandwich fixings? I'll make us something if you do."

"No, but I can get some," said Nero. "What kind do you want?"

"Can you just bring back one of those deli assortments?"

"Sure, I guess." Nero checked his wallet, found he had twenty-two dollars, and decided that was enough. Not looking Lady in the eye, he threw on his coat and went out the door as though he were a normal person who was allowed to leave the house sometimes.

The grocery store was only a mile and a half away, and Nero was in no hurry so he decided to walk it. The weather was starting to turn again, winds gusting down the cross-streets and low clouds hanging over the sky; Nero met only a few people, and none tried to speak to him. With his hands in his pockets, he took his time, strolling more than walking, looking up at the sky from time to time and appreciating the beauty of it more than he ever had before because this might be the last time he saw such lovely clouds.

He wasn't going to die today, he thought, but tomorrow might be sunny and still, so he let the wind brush through his hair and over his face and reveled in the sensation of it.

At the grocery store he carried through and bought a six-pack, a loaf of bread, some mayonnaise and a pre-packaged variety pack of deli meats. He thought about cheese, didn't know what Lady liked, and decided to get some Swiss and hope for the best.

As the cashier rang up his purchases, Nero looked at her and wondered if she'd ever felt like her life was over, the way he did. Probably not; she looked to be about sixteen, and probably hadn't even graduated high school yet. She had to call over a manager to ring up his beer, and otherwise barely looked at him as she went through his items. However, she visibly startled when he pulled out his wallet and thumbed it open with his right hand.

"Don't worry," he said, wearily. "I don't bite."

"Are you ...?"

"Yeah, but I'd rather not talk about it." He offered her the twenty-dollar bill with his left hand, and she warily took it. "I promise I won't hurt you. I'm ..." He decided to lie; why not? He was never going to see her again. "I'm actually a devil hunter."

"Oh," she said, and then a nervous kind of smile spread across her face. "Like Sparda."

Nero snorted. "Yeah," he said. "Exactly like ... Sparda."

"That's so cool." She made change for him with the swift expertise of long practice, and said, "You hear about demons sometimes, but they're always evil and killing people. I guess nobody ever talks about the ones like Sparda."

"Right." Nero took his change and stuffed it down into his wallet, and then picked up his little bag of groceries. "Well, be careful out there."

As he walked toward the door, he heard her say to someone else behind him, "Debbie, that was a _devil!"_ Nero stuck his hand back down into his pocket, cradling the bag in his left arm.

Sparda had probably never been helpless in his life. He'd probably gone down fighting whatever it was that had killed him, resisting to the very end. Nero was sure that Sparda had never been in a situation where he was powerless to stop what was happening, completely without options. Not the way Nero had been, that one evening last year, when his life was utterly ruined with a dozen pieces of jagged rebar.

He'd been hurt before, worse than that. It wasn't the pain that came back to haunt him in his nightmares, nor even the sickening sensation of metal impaling him. It was always that sense of helplessness, that feeling of inevitability, of having to watch while strangers determined his fate, decided when and how and how much to hurt him. It was the knowledge that he had no control over the situation whatsoever, that he had to just take whatever was dealt out to him until someone else decided the ordeal was over.

No, Sparda had never had that inflicted on him, Nero was sure. The great dark knight had never been a _victim_ in the way Nero had been.

A panhandler accosted Nero on the way back to the shop; Nero gave him a dollar just to get him to go away, and no one else tried to talk to him. He walked back in with his groceries as though shopping were a normal exercise for him, and said, "I'm back."

Lady had finished breastfeeding by then, and she stood up with Julia fitted against her shoulder. "Do you want to hold her while I make lunch?"

"Sure." So Nero took the baby, who barely roused in the transfer, while Lady went to the bar with the food.

"You were gone a long time," she said as she unpacked the back at the bar. "I was starting to get worried about you." The beer went into the fridge, the rest of the food was spread across the bar counter.

"I decided to walk it," said Nero. "You don't need to worry about me. I can take care of myself."

"I know. You were just gone so long. No lettuce or tomatoes?"

Damn. Nero shook his head. "Forgot it. Should I go back?"

"Nah, we'll make do." Lady took a knife out of one of the cupboards and started to assemble sandwiches.

Julia made a soft burbling sound, and Nero bounced her a little in his arms. She was such a pretty baby, with no hair yet but Nero was sure it would come in white when it did. He ran the backs of his talons over her cheek, and she sighed softly; his devil bringer tingled in proximity to her and glowed dully, not like it did with Dante but she definitely registered as a not-insignificant demon.

Lady finished with the sandwiches, cut them in half, and offered half of one to Nero; he had to shift Julia to his right shoulder in order to take it. Lady had given him the turkey slices, which he appreciated.

"Thank you," he said, with his mouth full.

"It's no problem," said Lady. "You did most of the work by going to the store."

Nero shrugged. That had been more of an experiment than anything. "Sorry I forgot tomatoes."

"Somehow I'll manage to forgive you." Lady picked up her own sandwich and started to eat it, moving as she did back to the desk where the television was coming back to the show from commercial break.

So Lady wasn't going to stop him if he left the shop. This was good information for Nero. She didn't know she was supposed to hover over him the way Dante did. Maybe if he left with his gun and no fixed plan she might say something, but Nero thought he could always come up with an excuse if needed.

He ate both halves of his sandwich, and then went into the fridge for a beer. This was workable. Lady still made him burn a little just by existing, just from Nero's knowledge that she had slept with Dante for decades, but he could keep that under control long enough.

Julia slept quietly against Nero's shoulder as he went to the couch with the beer and settled down to keep pretending to read his book. If he decided to end things tonight, Lady would not be an impediment.

* * *

Around sundown, Julia woke and began to fuss. Lady came to retrieve her from Nero, changed her, took her into the bathroom to bathe her, and eventually had her on the desk playing peek-a-boo with her.

"Sorry about that," said Lady. "She'll be up and down all night."

"Demon babies," said Nero. "What can you do?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do when it's time for school. What if she's still on a night schedule then?"

Nero had a hard time imagining a grandchild of Sparda in school, like himself or any human child. Somehow he doubted Dante had been given a normal, formal education. "This probably won't help," he said, "but I went to school and did kind of crappy, before I joined the Order."

Lady switched off the television, which was showing the news, and said, "Tell me about the Order. I barely know anything about you."

Nero shrugged, not looking up from his book. "Not much to tell. The Knights of the Order are respected, and I wanted that. They always gave me some shit about my gun, but regular people looked up to me. I liked that."

"When did you join?"

"I was fourteen. They start you out as a novice, teach you catechism, you serve in the temple for a while before they start you on weapons. It was fine. I got to wear the insignia right away and that was most of what I wanted. It was fun to learn swordfighting." It had been less fun to be mercilessly teased by the other novices for his weird white hair and lack of non-adoptive parents, but Nero didn't feel like sharing that part. "I was good at it. I moved up the ranks pretty quickly once we started weapons."

Despite the teasing and the ostracism, those had been good days for Nero. Much better than today. He looked down at his right hand, where it rested against his chest, and in a moment of weakness he said, "I probably should have stayed on Fortuna."

"Why? We like you here."

"Shit hasn't been great for me recently. You don't really understand. I'm not ..." What was making him say these things? Nero wasn't sure. He just wanted some kind of connection, to someone, and Lady happened to be here. "I'm not what I used to be."

Julia creaked out a low cry, and Lady picked her up and began to coo to her, bouncing her gently. To Nero she said, "I know something is going on with you. Dante won't tell me any details. I care about you, though, Nero. I thought we were friends, actually, but even if you don't see it that way, I'm _your_ friend. If there's something I can do, please just let me know."

"You can't help," said Nero. "Not even Dante can help."

How much more did he want to say? Part of Nero still wanted to tell her everything, about the flashbacks and the helplessness, but if he did that ... maybe next time he went to the store, or "to the store," she would want to come with him.

So after a long moment of silence, he said only, "Nobody can do anything. I have to handle this myself."

"Well," said Lady, and she sounded ... disappointed, maybe. "I'm here for you, okay?"

"Right." Whatever. "There's nothing you can do. I'm just ..." _Broken forever._ "... not up to talking about it."

The phone rang, then, and Nero startled. He didn't black out or lose any time, which was a miracle, but his hands went weak and started to shake.

"Devil May Cry," said Lady. "Oh, hey there. Yeah, everything's fine. He's fine. More importantly, how are things there?"

Nero scrambled to pick up his book and he stood up, turning his back and pretending to stretch as he attempted to get his shaking under control. _Just the phone. Just the phone._ It wasn't the mob on the other end, speaking lies to get him to come quietly to them.

"Right," said Lady. "No, I haven't. Should I? Oh. How long do you think this will take, then? Okay. Right. I guess I could. No, I don't mind. It's good to get out of the house for a few. Yeah. Okay. See you then." She hung up the phone, and said, "That was Dante. He thinks this is going to be a pretty big job and won't be back for a few days."

"That's cool," said Nero. He ran his hand over his face.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

"Because this is the second time you've acted weird when the phone rings."

Nero turned again to face Lady; she had moved Julia to her knee and was balancing the baby and bouncing her to keep her occupied. _Just tell her._ Some version of the truth. Not all of it. Just some kind of explanation. Nero looked down toward the floor.

_I'm broken. I flip out when I hear the phone, or hear my own gun discharge, or any of a half-dozen other things happens. I don't want to deal with this anymore._ Dante knew. What did it matter if Lady knew, too?

He didn't say it. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he bit down on them and said, instead, "I'm okay. It's nothing. Just startled me."

Lady didn't believe it; the look on her face spoke volumes. She didn't press him, however. Instead, she turned to Julia, and began to speak to the baby in a high-pitched voice. "Nero is being a silly butt," she said to the baby. "You tell him. You say, Nero, you're being so silly."

"Don't get the baby involved in this," said Nero, annoyed. He threw himself back down on the couch and picked up his book.

* * *

Lady went upstairs to bed with Julia a few hours later, and the light stayed on up there for a long time while, presumably, Lady tried to get her devil child to go back to sleep.

Nero laid on the couch, fully clothed and with a pillow, waiting for everything to grow quiet. Once it did, and the light went out, he waited for a good thirty minutes more before getting up, to give Lady time to drift off. He didn't want to wake her.

Blue Rose was where he'd left it, in the holster next to Red Queen's case. Nero took the gun out of the holster and examined it for a long time, then resolutely loaded it. He moved slowly, quietly, so that the metal clicking against metal wouldn't carry too far. He could create bullets in the cylinder if he needed to, but he didn't know if those would be adequate to the task. The material bullets, manufactured to be real and solid, should do it if anything could.

Carefully, Nero put the gun back in the holster and stood up to strap the holster to his leg. He didn't have a carry permit, like Dante did, so he'd have to make sure he didn't get caught with it; he thought his coat should conceal the weapon well enough. Then he paused, listened, and waited to see if he'd disturbed Lady at all. There was no sound from upstairs. Moving as silently as he could, Nero crept to the door, let himself out, and re-locked it behind himself.

The night was cool and breezy, and the street was lit only by yellow pools of light, the Devil May Cry sign being turned off for the night. Nero skipped down the steps and into the street, feeling freer than he had for weeks, lighter on his feet than he could remember.

He walked to the end of the street, and could turn right here to reach the central business district, where there would be restaurants and clubs still open, or left and go toward the less traveled areas. He thought about it for a bit, and then turned left, not wanting to meet anyone. There were lights this way, too, but there was little reason for anyone to come this way so late in the evening with all the businesses closed. Nero did not meet a soul as he strolled aimlessly, no particular destination in mind.

He didn't think he needed to go very far, just far enough that a gunshot wouldn't wake Lady or anyone else.

Down the center of each block ran a service alley, and Nero poked his head into each one as he passed it, checking if that would be a good place to die. Each one held the sour smell of spoiled milk and old urine, so Nero rejected each one in turn. Eventually, though, he reached a small pocket park, and turned into there, thinking that the darkness and the quiet felt inviting.

Seating himself on a bench, Nero pulled out Blue Rose and waited for a while, contemplating the weapon. He was in no hurry, here, and could spare some time to examine his feelings about what he was about to do.

Dante was going to be upset. His words came back to Nero: _I don't know if I could live without you. I don't want to try. I want you here when I get back._ Ideally, he wouldn't find out until this big job in Red Grave was finished, but it was likely that Lady would tell him before he got back if he called again. Maybe he wouldn't call again. Nero could hope. There would be a time, though, after Nero was dead and before Dante knew about it, when Dante was still impossibly expecting to come back to his younger lover's arms. Nero ran his hand over the weapon's double barrel and sighed, and raised it to look at the etchings; a tree blocked the light from the nearest streetlamp, and he couldn't really make them out until he brought his right hand closer to let the dim blue light spill across the metal.

That was fine. What was the best way to do this? Blue Rose was a big gun, and Nero had only one opportunity; what was the best way to ensure that just one shot would kill him?

He'd kill himself here, in the darkness, for the sun to find in the morning.

_Don't do it._ It was as though Dante himself were sitting next to Nero, whispering in his ear, putting a hand to Nero's wrist and pushing the gun back down to his lap. _Please._ Dante was going to be so upset if Nero carried through. Nero had never seen the man cry; would he cry when he found out that Nero had killed himself?

A strange clench of emotion abruptly squeezed Nero's lungs and heart, and he choked for a moment on it. Dante wouldn't even know he was gone for at least hours, possibly for days. Maybe he would come back to the shop, happy and triumphant, looking to hug and kiss Nero in greeting, and would instead be greeted by a solemn Lady with terrible news. And then Dante would think to himself, what could I have done differently, I shouldn't have left him alone, and part of Nero shied away sharply from that line of thought.

There was nothing Dante could do for him. This was the one thing Nero alone could control, the one thing in his life over which he had total control, in fact. Nero looked down at Blue Rose, in his lap once more, the etchings glinting faintly in the light from his devil bringer.

Standing, Nero put Blue Rose back into his holster and walked up the path back toward the sidewalk. He shouldn't let Dante come through the door expecting to see Nero and find out right at that moment that Nero was dead. He shouldn't make Dante cry in Lady's arms.

There was nothing Dante could do for him, but maybe there was something Nero could do for Dante.

The walk back to the shop was as uneventful as the walk out, and Nero very quietly unlocked the front door to let himself back in. The room was dark, but as soon as the door was closed Lady said, "Where'd you go?"

Her voice startled Nero, but it wasn't like getting a panic attack so he shrugged it off immediately. "Just out for a walk." He unstrapped his holster and dropped it next to Red Queen's case. "I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to bed."

"It about gave me a heart attack when you weren't here," said Lady. Nero heard her stand up in the darkness. "Julia is sleeping but if you want me to stay up with you ..."

"No," said Nero. "I just needed some air, is all. Go back to bed."

"... all right. But hey, Nero. If you ever need to talk about anything ..."

"I just needed air, that's all," said Nero, exasperated now.

"... right." Lady moved around the desk, as quiet as a shadow, and went back upstairs.

Nero unloaded Blue Rose once he was sure she was gone, and then laid down on the couch without bothering to undress, closing his eyes but remaining awake for a long time before sleep took him.

* * *

It was the next morning, when Lady went to turn on her soap opera and found it pre-empted by breaking news, that they discovered what Dante was doing.

It looked like some kind of giant fungal growth, or a vast bee's nest, rising up amongst the buildings of Red Grave and almost as tall as the tallest one already. One news crew had gotten close enough to view the broken pavement at the base, pavement that was gradually but steadily being pushed back further as the thing continued to grow, while another crew was well back from it and filming the thing from a distance, to give perspective on its size. The story kept switching between the two, giving the distinct impression that the thing was growing quite swiftly. It had first appeared in the dark hours of the morning, and had been fifteen feet tall already; now it was the size of a skyscraper.

"What. The. Hell." Nero just didn't know what to think about this, except that he was sure Dante was in there somewhere, trying to stop this thing. "What _is_ that?"

"I don't know," said Lady, leaning forward with Julia in her arms to get a closer look at Dante's grainy television. "I've never heard of anything like this before."

Big job, Morrison had said, and it certainly looked like that was an understatement. The news cut to a view of the people gathered around the growth, and the first responders trying to get them to back away. Most bystanders were fleeing, but there were always those who wanted to get closer to any unusual phenomenon and had to be herded back. The police had formed a line and were expanding it around the growth to move people out of the way. The news anchors talked about how the National Guard had been called in, and the distance shots showed the fire engines gathered around. Everything was being mobilized to identify this thing and figure out how to get rid of it.

Everything except Nero, of course. He should have been there, right now, helping Dante figure out a way to cut this thing down.

"I should be there," he said, his voice low and guilty.

"I should, too," said Lady, but she rubbed her baby's back. "I just can't right now."

Neither could Nero, but he couldn't say that without opening up a discussion of _why._ "This is unbelievable," he said instead.

The news crew closest to the fungal tree thing was live, the correspondent giving an on-air update about its growth, when the pavement around him suddenly burst as though exploding, giving way to long, waving tendrils with spikes on the ends. One skewered the news correspondent through the abdomen, and then another dove toward the camera, as quick as a thought; the camera fell to the ground, and showed feet running everywhere until the program cut back to the anchors.

"Holy fuck," said Nero, although he'd been kind of half-dreading the inevitability of people dying to this thing in some fashion. Lady said nothing, just watched as the distance crew took better shots of what was going on.

The tendrils were _everywhere,_ hundreds of yards out from the base of the growing fungus thing, stabbing into the suddenly-panicked crowd and catching bystanders and police alike. Those who were caught by the spiked tendrils were hoisted into the air, screaming and struggling against the spikes impaling them.

Nero should have been there. He put a hand to his mouth, seeing again that woman in the basement of that house on Twenty-second Street; this was like that, except on a monumental scale. He was, yet again, sitting back and doing nothing while people were tortured and died to demonic powers. But, when he looked down at his hands, they were shaking.

The front door opened then, creaking on its hinges, and Nero and Lady both looked up to see who it was. Men in dark suits, four of them. They all looked to Nero, where he leaned against the desk over Lady's shoulder to watch the news program. "Are you Dante?" asked one of them.

Nero straightened. "No," he said. "He's not here. Can I help you?"

"Do you know when he'll be back?"

Lady nodded toward the TV. "If this is about what's going on in Red Grave City, you're too slow. He's already there."

The men looked at one another, and one of them said, "I guess that's good?"

The one who had spoken first turned back to Nero, saying, "Are you two devil hunters, too?"

_"Lady,"_ said Nero, "is a new mother as you can see. She's not going to back you up."

"I'm sorry," said Lady. "I'd really like to."

"This is Lady?" asked another of the men. "So you would be ...?"

"Nero," said Nero.

The first man then said, "I see. We'd like for you to come to Red Grave, Nero."

"I can't," said Nero immediately. "I would have gone with Dante if I could have."

"Why not?"

_Because I'd fuck everything up. Because I might make things even worse._ "Because I can't," said Nero. "I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Please," said another of the men. "We just got word that people have started to die there ..."

"Yeah," said Lady. "We saw it on the news."

"Dante will handle it," said Nero. "Dante can handle anything."

"Even so, we'd really like everyone on the scene ..."

"I can't," said Nero again, a little heat behind the words. He wasn't sure if it was anger, or embarrassment that he was forced to admit to these strangers that he was incapacitated right now. "I would if I could. But you've already got Dante, and that's who you came for, right? So, mission accomplished, gentlemen."

"If you're a devil hunter ..."

Nero was definitely angry now. He raised his right hand. "I'm also a demon. Do you want to risk me getting there and deciding to take the demon's side?"

That drew them all up short, staring at his hand, and Nero knew he was being deceptive but he didn't much care. Lady tapped him on the arm, drawing his attention back to the television.

"Nero, look."

There was movement around the ... fungus tree thing, figures streaming down the trunk and spreading out around the base. The news feed was too far away to make out details, but it was impossible that these things were anything but demons. "So, demon invasion," said Nero, and the men at the door turned to whisper to one another.

"There must be a gate inside it," said Lady. "Or at the top."

"I don't know, it could be generating them," said Nero.

"Nero, Lady," said one of the men at the door. "We need your help."

"You need _Dante's_ help," said Nero. "And you're getting it already. Just ... leave me alone. Leave me alone."

There wasn't anything they could do to force him, so eventually the men left and Nero and Lady were back to watching the situation unfold on television.

The news crew retreated further, as the spiked tendrils spread and the demons crawled through the streets. Lady switched the channel until she found a news feed that had a helicopter in the air; the tree thing was still visibly growing, expanding its base and reaching toward the sky. It was twisted and bulbous, and almost seemed to pulse as it grew. The camera panned over the ground, and the streets were packed with people evacuating. As Nero watched, tendrils burst up out of the pavement in the middle of a crowd, spearing them, killing them.

"This is awful," said Lady, transferring Julia from her shoulder to the crook of her arm. "Just awful."

"Dante will put an end to it," said Nero. "He always does."

"I hope so. It can't come soon enough."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More suicidal ideation in this chapter, but not as much, so if you've made it this far you're probably okay.
> 
> Thank you to [JustVisible](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustVisible/pseuds/JustVisible) for helping with this chapter.

Nero already knew something had gone atrociously wrong long before V came strolling back into the shop. He'd known since that morning, when the news was still fixated on the growing thing in Red Grave City, and demons were running rampant through the streets with nothing to oppose them. Dante should have been cleaning up the demons by that point, having disposed of the tree thing already. The fact that the fungus-like tree was still around, and the devils had the run of the city, told Nero everything he needed to know about the situation.

So when the door opened late in the afternoon and V tapped his way in, Nero already had a pit of dread open in his belly and pain at the base of his throat that was only exacerbated by the strange man's appearance.

"What the hell happened?" Nero demanded. He straightened up from where he'd been leaning over Lady's shoulder to watch the news on television, a position he'd held for most of the day. "Where is Dante? Why isn't he dealing with this?"

"There was a ... complication," said V, and his smooth voice was colored by ... concern? It was hard to tell exactly, but Nero thought it might have been concern. "Things didn't go the way we expected."

"The way _you_ expected," said Lady, tone hard.

V thought about it a moment, and then inclined his head in agreement. "The demon Dante fought turned out to be more powerful than we ... I ... had imagined. Trish tried to assist but ..." V's words tapered off, and his mouth closed into a thin line.

Nero's face and fingers went numb. "Did it kill him?"

"I ... don't know, actually. I was too far away and couldn't reach them. Dante and Trish were trapped. I tried to get to them but ..." That was definitely concern, written across V's face as he turned to Nero. "There was nothing I could do. I'm not like Dante. I can't just force my way through obstacles. The Qliphoth is still growing, and I couldn't reach the crown."

"Qliphoth," said Lady. She gestured toward the TV screen. "Is that what you call this thing?"

"Yes," said V. "It's a tree that grows in the underworld. It feeds on human blood. Urizen planted the seed in this world to collect blood, and ... it's working. The tree is growing. Soon it will have complete control of Red Grave City and will expand beyond the city's limits."

"But what happened to Dante and Trish?" asked Nero. He could hear his blood rushing through his ears for a moment. "Are they dead?"

"I don't know," said V simply.

"How can you not know? This was _your_ job!"

"Nero," said Lady, laying a hand on Nero's wrist. "Dante would have gone anyway, even without a paying job. As soon as the news hit, he would have been out the door. You know that."

"... yeah," said Nero. He shrugged her hand off his arm. Julia, resting against Lady's shoulder, made a soft, distressed sound and Lady rubbed her back to soothe her.

"So now it is up to ... you, Nero," said V, leaning against his cane, that tattered brown book in his other hand. "You're a devil hunter, too, aren't you? When you want to be."

"Morrison tell you that?" said Nero. He still couldn't feel his face, or his fingertips. Dante ... possibly dead. What did he have to live for now, if Dante had died? A strange kind of numbness spread out from his chest.

"You could say that," said V. "Circumstances being what they are ... I suggest you get yourself together and feel like being a devil hunter today."

What could Nero hope to do against something that had killed Dante? He looked down at the television, still showing nonstop coverage of the demonic tree killing people in Red Grave. A lot of the citizenry had been evacuated already, but the National Guard had moved in and Nero knew how that had turned out without being told. It was just a matter of time before the military started to firebomb the thing, and if Dante wasn't dead already that might be the end of him.

Dante. Nero had only just barely decided that staying alive for the sake of Dante's happiness was his reason to not kill himself right here and now, and now it looked like Dante might himself be dead. If Dante was dead, Nero was not going to stay here alone. He'd turn Blue Rose on himself in a heartbeat if he were sure.

"Nero," said V, a hint of urgency in his tone. "I know you may not be at your best right now ..."

Nero snarled at him, but couldn't put much energy into it. "What the hell do you know about me?" he demanded.

"... only that you said you would have gone with Dante if you could," said V, after a flustered moment. "So there must have been something keeping you from doing it. Whatever that something was, I hope it's resolved because I don't think you have a choice now."

Nero ran his left hand over his face, and then looked down at it; it was steady. "What can I possibly do against something that can kill Dante?" he asked.

"You don't know that Dante is dead," said Lady. "He might just be hurt, and needing help."

"I didn't see him killed," said V. "It's hard to explain ... Dante and Trish were fighting Urizen. They were thrown back ... I think Trish was knocked unconscious. Dante's Rebellion was broken. Then a--"

"Wait," Nero interrupted. "Rebellion was _broken?"_

"... yes."

"How is that even possible? Rebellion is a devil arm!"

V's eyes slid over to one side, and he said, "Devil arms can be broken. Yamato was once broken, wasn't it?"

That numb kind of disconnected feeling that was separating Nero from his own emotions increased, leaving Nero feeling like he was watching this happen to someone else, from some other place. "How do you know that?" he asked.

V shook his head and pulled his book closer to his chest. "Dante and I spoke a little on the way to Red Grave," he said. "He told me a few things. But it's true, isn't it? Yamato was once broken."

"It's true," said Nero, not seeing a reason to lie about it. Then he asked, "Who are you, V? How do you know all these things?"

"I am ... nobody in particular," said V. "I simply read things and ask questions, and that's how I know things sometimes. Now. Nero, you have to come to Red Grave. It doesn't matter why you didn't do it before. You are the only hope to stop Urizen."

Nero looked over at Lady, and she was looking up at him with an expression of frank expectation. What V was saying was true. It was just him, now; he couldn't ask Lady to so much as come along. The very idea of people relying on him, when he was so unreliable, put a hint of anxiety into him, but he was so overwhelmed with other emotions that he couldn't be too worried about it right now.

What was mainly running through him was terror for Dante. He saw again, as though in a dream, Dante's sightless eyes, Dante's slit throat; and, again, he saw the woman in the basement on Twenty-second Street, being slowly eaten alive by demon spawn. Dante was resilient and hadn't yet met anything that could kill him, but Nero had to believe that the man _could_ be killed, and some things were definitely worse than a clean death.

Could Nero do this?

Could he afford not to try?

"What happened after Rebellion was broken?" he asked, buying time to come to a decision.

"Dante was knocked back and fell to the ground," said V. "The area where they were fighting wound up closed off by ... I don't know, growths of the Qliphoth I suppose. I was ... trying to fend off the lesser demons to keep them from interfering, and I ended up on the wrong side of the barrier. I couldn't get through to see what happened after that."

So Dante had been, at a minimum, helpless before Urizen. What might a powerful demon do after that, especially one that had Yamato?

That numb feeling was starting to fade, the veil between Nero's perception and reality dropping. Nero still couldn't feel his fingers. He looked down at his left hand, and again found it to be steady.

"You have to go," said Lady. "You don't have any other options."

"I know," said Nero. He was out of choices here. Dante might still be alive, somewhere in that tree thing, and Nero had an obligation to at least attempt a rescue.

And if Dante weren't alive ... well, Nero would still give Urizen his best shot, for the sake of the humans, but if he fell he wouldn't be too sad.

"You're coming?" asked V, a trace of hope in his tone.

"Yes," said Nero.

* * *

V had a car, and Nero thought he would just as soon _not_ take his own into the middle of a demon invasion, so he let V drive. It somehow didn't seem odd that V drove like it was an unfamiliar exercise, nor that he was exceptionally careful with the vehicle; Nero at first assumed the car to be stolen. When they stopped for gas, however, before leaving town, V paid for the gas and for Nero's coke with a crisp, new fifty-dollar bill out of a wallet packed with them, which made Nero reassess his assumptions.

When they got back to the car, V said, "Whatever your fee is for accompanying me, I will gladly pay it."

"I'm not going to charge you for rescuing Dante," said Nero. "And you don't need to come along if you don't want to." His devil bringer was quiet and dim now that he was out of the office and away from Julia; he didn't really need a human getting in the way.

"I have my own resources," said V. "I'll show you when we get to Red Grave."

"So, what did Dante tell you?"

"Not as much as you might think. A few things about Yamato that I didn't know before. A few things about you. He was more focused on the mission."

"What did he tell you about me?" Nero tried to fight the burn of humiliation that Dante might have gossiped about his problems to this stranger.

V turned onto the interstate. "Only that you're a good devil hunter, and he wished you could have come with us. A few things along those lines."

Okay, that was acceptable. Nero relaxed back against the seat, and said, "Let's focus on the mission ourselves, then. Tell me about this tree thing."

"The Qliphoth. As I said, it normally grows in the underworld. A few times before the barrier was raised, it was planted in the human world, to collect blood."

"Why? What good does that do?"

"Human blood is the key to vast demonic power." V glanced sidelong at Nero. "You're part-human, aren't you?"

Nero glanced down at his right hand. "Yes. Mostly, in fact. I have a demon in my ancestry, a long way back."

"Mmmm." The sound was complicated, maybe disappointed. "Demons are able to function perfectly well without human blood, but become more powerful if they have it. The Qliphoth gathers blood for its own growth, but demons can utilize that blood for themselves by tapping the tree."

"And by demons you mean Urizen," said Nero.

V seemed to think about it a moment, and then nodded a bit. "Yes. Urizen is too powerful with access to all the blood he is gathering from the Qliphoth. That was Dante's ... and my ... mistake, attacking him directly when he's drawing power from the Qliphoth."

"I guess that makes sense," said Nero. He put the window down and rested his elbow on the car door. "So, we need to just destroy the tree to cut off the blood flow for Urizen before attacking. How do we do that?"

"Sever the roots. Just like with any plant, it cannot live without its roots."

Nero nodded. "The roots are those tendril things. With the spikes on them. Right?"

"Correct. Break them, destroy them, and the Qliphoth will wither. But Nero, we have a time limit. The tree is always growing. If it grows beyond a certain point, Urizen will pass a threshold of power where he will be too strong for us even without access to the blood. We need to destroy the Qliphoth and defeat Urizen before that point comes."

"So, what's the clock set to?" asked Nero.

"I'm ... not sure," said V. "Its growth will slow now that it has less ready access to blood, but as the humans attempt to attack it and become fresh sacrifices to the Qliphoth ... that affects our time table."

Nero blew out his breath. "That's not helpful, V."

"I'm sorry. There's just nothing more I can tell you."

"Whatever." Nero kicked back in the seat and they rode in silence after that.

* * *

The Qliphoth became visible by the time they reached the outskirts of Red Grave City. Much taller than the tallest downtown buildings now, it reached for the sky like a worshiper of the heavens. V was stopped by a military roadblock outside the city limits, and while he patiently tried to explain that Nero was a devil hunter here to help, the roadblock was attacked by demons.

They swarmed out of seemingly nowhere, a good two dozen of them, along with those spiked tendril roots that stabbed toward the humans. Nero flung himself out of the car with Red Queen already in hand and began to defend the humans, who seemed to think that mundane weaponry would be enough. They fired toward the devils and toward the flailing roots with their machine guns, and one by one were stabbed through until Nero put himself in between the two parties.

Avoiding the roots was simple enough, and two slashes with a flaming Red Queen was enough to sever each one; the demons were slightly more difficult to handle, but only slightly. They looked like insects of some kind, giant ants or termites or some such creature, with huge mandibles and six scurrying limbs. They moved quickly, with sharp movements, but not sharp enough to catch Nero. He decapitated one, slashed up a few more, stabbed two to death with his flaming blade. It all came back to him as if on instinct, how to fight, how to evade, although his muscles didn't always obey him quite as quickly as he wanted them to.

Then a voice somewhere up behind him gave a high cackle, and in the next moment, lightning rained down from the clear sky. It came in a straight row along the pavement, not loud enough to be natural, and certainly not forecasted. Nero instinctively raised his sword to defend himself, but there was no need; he wasn't the target. The lightning caught one of the demons and it spasmed as the live current ripped through its body, before it finally dropped to the ground. Then there was a roar, like from a large cat, and a blur of something dark rushed past Nero. It flung itself at another one of the creatures, some kind of large spinning blade. Nero had no idea what was happening, but anything that attacked and killed demons was okay by him in the heat of the moment.

Between the lightning, the dark roaring thing, and Nero, the demons were cleaned up quickly. With a step back and a moment to gain his bearings, Nero got a look at his helpers: the first was an iridescent blue bird with a four-pronged beak, the other a black panther. His devil bringer was still glowing, and he eyed them suspiciously with Red Queen at the ready.

"What are demons doing killing other demons?" he demanded.

"They can't really kill anything," said V, who was back among the fallen beasts they'd just dispatched. One of them was still twitching. Nero had assumed it dead, from the damage it had received from the cat, but it was somehow still alive. As Nero watched, V skewered its head on the end of his cane, and that seemed to effectively end it, its body disintegrating into pollen. "Those two are ... not entirely real, in the sense that you and I are real. I have to deliver the final blow, myself."

"You're a sorcerer, then?" said Nero. And he'd been in a car with this thing for hours.

V seemed to find the idea amusing. "No. Sorcerers trade their souls for power. I've traded nothing, and I have no power of my own."

The panther padded back over toward V and stood between him and Nero, while the bird remained ready, hovering midair. "Keep your judgments to yourself, tough guy," said the bird. "Not everyone can swing a giant honking sword around."

"Oh, great, it talks," said Nero.

"This one is Griffon," said V, holding out an arm for it to perch on. The bird was about the size of a turkey and looked obnoxiously big on V's thin arm. "The other is Shadow. I have a third familiar, but you won't meet him until things get dire."

The cat – Shadow – gave a low rumble and the bird cackled. "Kitty cat's happy to make your acquaintance, kid!"

It sure didn't sound like it. "A fucking pleasure, I'm sure," Nero replied.

"We should go before the National Guard decide to stop us again," said V, and Griffon sort of ... disintegrated, dissolving into black specks that poured back into the tattoos on V's body, filling in line work that Nero hadn't noticed until now was empty.

The military had, indeed, fallen back while Nero and the familiars had fought the demons, but Nero could hear them not far away and knew they wouldn't be long in retaking control of this ground. He didn't really want to get into another conversation with them about devils and whatnot, so as reluctant as he was to get back into a car with V, he said, "Fine. Let's go."

Shadow also disintegrated, reintegrating with V in the same way Griffon had, as the two of them climbed into the car. Nero kept Red Queen in the front seat with him this time, but the weapon was too big to really wield in the confined space and he wished – not for the first time, or probably the last – that he could handle Blue Rose without flipping out. He really wanted a gun in his hand right now to hold on V.

"Out with it," he said, once they were back on the deserted road. "Who are you, really."

"No one important," said V.

"Don't bullshit me. _No one important_ wouldn't have demons working for him. If you're not a sorcerer, what are you?"

"My relationship with my familiars is ... complicated," said V.

"Un-complicate it for me." Nero's devil bringer was dark again, with just its normal background glow, so the demons weren't really _here_ in a way that he could perceive. Where they'd gone was another open question, and one that Nero really wanted answered once he knew what he was dealing with here.

"I would if I could," said V. "I'm not sure I fully understand it myself. I've had my familiars for as long as I've been ... alive. They seem to be manifestations of something inside me. Fears, perhaps, or ... memories. They haunt me. But they also help me."

But V was fully human, if Nero's devil bringer was any judge, and Nero trusted that it would know. Not normal by any means, but human. Nero kicked the glove box with his boot, angry that he couldn't get any good answers here. "Well," he said, finally, "I hope your _familiars_ are good at fighting, because I'm not leaving you behind." If nothing else, Nero decided he should keep an eye on V.

"They can handle most lesser demons," said V. "We did some clean-up for Dante on the way in to Urizen. It wasn't easy but it worked out. Griffon isn't really made for fighting, but he works well with Shadow, who is."

Nero expected he would wind up doing most of the heavy lifting when it came to killing demons, but could probably count on some support. That was more than he'd expected from V, so he wasn't going to begrudge it, but he was nevertheless disgruntled at the mystery of how an ordinary human like V had demonic familiars. The explanation that V had no explanation, and that he'd just had them his whole life, was entirely unsatisfying.

There was nothing trustworthy about V, nothing whatsoever, and Nero wondered if he was walking directly into a trap.

* * *

Above the city, the Qliphoth proper reached skyward, but at ground level, loops of the demonic tree's roots arched out of, and back into, the earth. At first V was able to navigate the car around them, and around the gaps in the pavement created by them, but there came a point where the road was so fractured by the roots that vehicular travel became impossible.

They parked the car at the edge of a fracture that split the interstate into pieces. As they got out of the car, Nero said, "I guess this is the end of the road."

"I suppose so," said V. He left the keys in the car when he shut the door. Then he raised his arm, and Griffon materialized on it and launched into the air.

"I guess you expect me to go scout around for you," said the bird. "Hah!"

"I don't expect anything from you," said Nero, annoyed. "I don't need or want you."

"It would be useless to attack the individual roots," said V, as Griffon circled overhead. "There are too many, and the Qliphoth will just grow more. No, we should look for the ... nexus, of sorts, where the roots come together. Destroying a nexus will have a much greater impact than destroying an individual root."

"So, figure out which way to go," said Griffon from overhead. "My specialty. Need help to the ground first, V?"

"Yes," said V, and that was how Nero discovered that the bird could take V by the hand and fly him over the edge of the fracture and down to the ground below. Nero just jumped, because it looked to be only about forty feet, and Griffon was winging away by the time he got down there.

Shadow oozed out of V's tattoos once they started to pick their way over the huge pieces of broken pavement, toward the flatter area beside the interstate. The great cat padded alongside V for a few moments, before dissolving into a kind of mist and gathering around V's feet, supporting and carrying his master over the uneven ground.

"Isn't that convenient," said Nero, who had been wondering how V's flimsy-looking sandal shoes were going to fare on the long trek into downtown.

"Shadow knows I'm not at my best right now," said V. He planted his cane in the front of the bubbling mist under his feet and leaned on it. "I couldn't possibly keep up with you otherwise."

"Yeah, well," said Nero, and felt no need to continue that thought.

They moved along the surface streets for a while, until Griffon came circling back; V extended his arm again for the bird to perch upon. "There's a clustering of roots to the north," said Griffon. "And a little east. It's well guarded, but I think with Hot Shot's help we can handle it."

"I have a name," said Nero.

"Oh, forgive me, _Nero,"_ said Griffon, launching himself back into the air. "Is there anything else you want from me? A gold star, perhaps?"

"Please excuse him," said V smoothly. "He's not accustomed to other people, and I hadn't the time to teach him manners."

"Don't apologize for me, V," said Griffon. "I haven't done anything that requires an apology."

"Keep it up, bird-brain," said Nero. "You're just a demon like any other as far as I'm concerned."

Nero's right hand itched, and the glow ramped up a bit just before a pack of those insectoid devils came swarming down the street, coming out of a tangle of thorny roots up ahead. Almost by instinct Nero put himself between the devils and V, walking slowly to let the demons come to him with Red Queen in his hand. He gave the first one to come into range a brutal crushing strike, and the second a heavier upward cut, and then he was joined by the two familiars: Shadow throwing himself bodily at one of the closest demons, transforming into a whirling blade at the last moment, and Griffon flying directly into an insect demon's face, wings sparking.

Flanked by the familiars, Nero carved a path through the pack, advancing as he did and leaving bodies behind him. His arm started to get tired, though, as he slashed and jumped and dove to the side to avoid getting cut by a demon's mandibles, and delivered hard punches from his devil bringer. It was a lot of work, fighting demons, a lot more than he ever remembered it being before.

He just wasn't in shape like he used to be, it seemed.

Nero was a bit too slow in dodging a lunging demon and it got him by the coat tail; a moment later, Griffon was buffeting the demon's face with his wings, forcing it to release Nero and then shocking it with his lightning. Nero followed that up by slamming the devil's face to the ground with his devil bringer, and its head cracked open on the pavement like a ripe melon. Griffon whirled away, looking for another target.

Eventually the swarm stopped coming, and Nero decapitated one last devil and sank to his haunches, resting Red Queen against his shoulder with the point to the ground and shaking out his left arm. "Damn," he said. "I should have sparred with Dante more." He hadn't thought he'd need to devil hunt again; he'd thought Dante would take care of that for him.

Dante. Where was he now? Was he still alive, even?

Shadow padded up to Nero, not looking at him but scanning around with his red eyes as though standing defense, and Nero was irritated. He rose to his feet, hefting his sword up onto his back, and looked around for V.

The man was behind him, working amongst the fallen, dealing the final blow to the ones his familiars had downed. The demons' bodies were swiftly falling apart, becoming floating pollen on the gentle breeze, breaking down far faster than any demon Nero had previously killed. It was possible to tell immediately which ones were dead and which were only wounded by the familiars, and V moved decisively to those that were only wounded to kill them with his cane.

Eventually V finished up and approached Nero. "Should we continue on?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Nero. He shook out his left arm again, and said, "You should know, though, that I haven't done this for ... a couple of months. I'm out of practice."

"You looked like you were doing well enough to me," said V. "Much better than I would be able to on my own. I can't move the way you do. In fact, I probably wouldn't even be able to lift your sword."

Nero breathed a laugh through his nose, but with his head down. "There was a time when I could fight demons all day and not get tired. That time is ... not today."

"Don't worry, I'm always here to lend a helping wing," said Griffon, from overhead. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Thank you," said Nero, reflexively, before frowning because there was no way he wanted to show gratitude to a demon. But Griffon just chortled in the sky and said nothing more about it.

Ahead, the loops of Qliphoth root that emerged from the ground bore no spikes, but once they were amongst the roots Nero became gradually aware of a strange odor that they emitted. Something faint but foul, like something dead but not quite to the rotting stage. Experimentally, he slashed one with Red Queen and tested if the fluid inside was the source of the odor, but it wasn't; the thin, runny sap instead smelled vaguely like stale blood.

"Something wrong?" asked V, as Nero rejoined him from his investigation.

"No," said Nero. "Just trying to figure out that smell."

"It gets worse as we get closer," said V. "Once you start climbing the Qliphoth itself, the smell becomes horrific."

"Fantastic," said Nero. Just what he needed. "So, tell me, how do you know so much about this tree thing? What it's called, what it does, all that."

"Hmmm." V beckoned, and Shadow again dissolved into a bubble of mist to support and carry the man. "You could say that my _relationship_ with the demonic realm drew me to researching many mysteries. The Qliphoth has been planted in the human world before, and there are old writings about it."

"So you're a kind of demonologist," said Nero.

"I ... suppose you could say that."

The pavement was broken here, with the roots looping out of it; Nero had to weave around the roots, careful lest the thorns rip his clothes. "I did just say that," said Nero. "I'm asking if _you_ would say that."

"I never put such a label on myself," said V. "But I don't think it's inaccurate. What about yourself? You're a devil hunter ... what else do you do with your time?"

_I think about how nice it would be if I weren't alive anymore._ Nero frowned. "Nothing so glamorous for me," he said. "I just ... read books in my free time."

V scoffed. "You say that as though reading were a waste."

"I'm not researching anything, though. I just go to the public library and borrow books. I like fiction, and philosophy."

"Who is your favorite philosopher?"

Nero thought about it. "I don't know that I have a _favorite,_ but if you tried to pin me down I'd probably say Thomas Hobbes. I won't claim that I've read much of what he wrote, but I found a great book about him that sort of put his ideas into normal language that I could understand. I liked his thoughts about the origin of states, and the foundation of state power."

"I can't say that I've ever read Thomas Hobbes," said V. "I was always more interested in, what you might call, a _rawer_ form of power, a more personal form." He gave a complex sort of sigh and leaned on his cane, which was propped up by the boiling Shadow that supported him, and clutched his book to his chest. "Maybe it was a pointless exercise. I have no power of my own today."

That book. V carried it with him even now, holding it like a dear friend. Nero gestured to it, and asked, "What's in the book, there? I bet it's not Thomas Hobbes." It was probably something demon-related, Nero guessed.

A thin smile tugged at V's lips. "No. It is a book of poetry only. Nothing that would interest you, I imagine."

Nero knew a brush-off when he heard one, so he didn't give voice to the indignant _You don't know what would interest me, you don't know me at all,_ that pushed against his tongue. If V wanted to keep his book private, Nero wasn't going to pressure him to share. It wasn't like Nero was extremely interested anyway. "If you say so," was all he said.

What kind of poetry would appeal to a demonologist? It was probably something inspired by Lovecraft.

Nero and V traveled in near-silence for a while, until Griffon came in for a landing and melded down into V's tattoos, which prompted a comment from Nero. "So you carry them with you," he said. "Your familiars, I mean."

"I ... suppose?" said V. "I don't really understand their relationship to me, or where they go when not manifest."

"They go into and come out of your tattoos," said Nero. "You have to know that."

"Yes," said V. "I've always had the marks, though. They developed right after I was ... born. They're not tattoos, in the normal sense of being ink, obviously. Sometimes I even wonder if my familiars are what they appear to be. Shadow, and Griffon, and Nightmare." The bubbling mist under V's feet made a low rumbling sound, and V smiled but didn't translate the noise.

"Nightmare," said Nero. "That's your third one?" It was an ominous name, fitting enough for a demon but not, perhaps, for an ally.

"You'll meet him eventually, I expect."

"Not sure I want to," muttered Nero. He might have had more to say on that, but his devil bringer was starting to itch again, betraying that more demons were on their way. Lifting Red Queen off his back, he swung the sword a few times to test how well his left arm had recovered from the earlier work, and said, "Here we go again."


	6. Chapter 6

Scudding clouds high in the sky caught the dusky light of the setting sun, and the pollen from the Qliphoth dusted the sky to cast everything in a shade like garnet, or like blood. The entire city was bathed in the glorious light, as the shadows lengthened and the edges of the buildings seemed bathed in red fire.

Nero and V paused at the edge of a plaza, where the concrete was shattered almost completely by Qliphoth roots. The roots were everywhere now, winding and twining around and through everything, breaking pavement and walls and roofs and vehicles and ground. Here and there rose stiff, terminal tendrils with spikes on the ends, most of them already spearing bodies that were grown through with red root hairs. Red Grave was quiet, and it was the quiet of a city that hadn't evacuated nearly fast enough.

"This is awful," said Nero, starting to pick his way along the edge of the plaza. There were far too many bodies here; there must have been a crowd present when the roots erupted from the ground. Those few tendrils that lacked bodies weaved about, searching. "How many people died here?"

"A lot," said V. "This place alone has provided Urizen with great power."

A slight tremor vibrated up Nero's boots as he negotiated the broken pavement, and he glanced back toward V. "Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Then the tremor repeated, and V frowned. "Yes."

One of the spiked tendrils was in the way, so Nero hacked it until it was severed, and climbed over the squirming stump. The tremor repeated again, and Nero decided it couldn't be an earthquake. It had to be something huge moving around.

He wasn't looking forward to fighting something big before they reached Urizen; his arm already ached when he lifted Red Queen, from the fighting behind him. If it had to be done, he'd do it, but he wasn't eager for it.

Several buildings fronted the plaza, and as Nero and V came around the Qliphoth roots that looped through it, Nero was able to catch a glimpse of the nearest nexus between the buildings. It was unmistakable, a twisted collection of roots reaching skyward, as tall as any of the buildings around them and colored blood-red. He pointed at it, and V nodded.

"Yes, that's where we need to go," said the dark-haired man.

"Figured," said Nero. It looked like it was a couple of miles away, maybe two or three, and while Nero was sure he could make it with no problem he wasn't so sure about V. Although V rode his Shadow-conveyance whenever the ground was uneven, he was nevertheless looking somewhat tired, more tired than Nero felt, leaning hard on his cane. Nero intended to just keep going until he fell over, but he had to concede that, as a human, V might fall over well before he did.

When that happened, Nero wondered if he should just keep going and leave V behind.

A small pack of demons was wandering the streets, and Nero wearily pulled his sword off his back to deal with them, and he didn't want to say it but he was getting mighty grateful for the assistance of V's familiars. Shadow roared out at Nero's side immediately, more eager to fight than Griffon, who nevertheless soared in a few moments later with a joyful cackle. If it were just a matter of walking a couple of miles to the nexus, Nero would have no trouble with it at all, but having to hack his way through demons to get there might turn into a different story entirely.

Once all the demons were down and Nero had flicked the blood off his blade, he turned to Shadow and said, "Thanks. For the help."

"You're welcome, Nero, baby," said Griffon from on high. Nero finger-gunned at the bird, and Griffon laughed.

V looked at him curiously, though, and asked, "What happened to your gun?"

"What gun?" asked Nero. "Who said I had a gun?"

"I ... thought you did," said V. "I thought I saw you with one."

Nero had no idea what made V think that, since, other than picking up Blue Rose with the intention of killing himself with it, he had barely touched the weapon for two months. "Nope," said Nero. "You definitely haven't seen me with one." He put Red Queen onto his back, and beckoned. "Let's keep moving."

He crossed the plaza, trying to figure out the shortest path to the nexus. Probably the best way to go would be to keep following the surface streets in that direction, zig-zagging as necessary to stay on track. The only major problem was the Qliphoth roots, as they sometimes bent the asphalt up to tent it as they grew under it, or raised whole sections of the roadway. Nero had no issues himself with leaping up and over the obstacles, but V was not so agile and he had to borrow the assistance of Griffon more than once.

As Nero waited at the top of one section of broken roadway for Griffon to come give V an assist, he called down, somewhat reluctantly, "If you don't want to come along, you don't have to." He didn't much want to let V out of his sight, and he _did_ appreciate the familiars' assistance, but it seemed cruel to force V to follow him over terrain that only got rougher as they progressed.

Griffon came flying in from behind V, and V raised his cane; Griffon grabbed onto the cane with his talons as he said, "Upsey-daisy!" and lifted the cane, with V clinging to it, up to the top of the roadway. V was dropped at the edge of the little roadway cliff, and lost his balance for a moment so that he knelt to put one hand on the ground, but then straightened.

"I want to come along," he said. "I need to."

"Why?"

"You'll need my help with Urizen." V started to walk in the direction of the nexus, cane tapping on the ground, and Nero turned to go with him. Beneath Nero's feet, the ground shivered.

Nero wasn't sure what help he actually needed from V, or what help V could provide beyond the assistance of his familiars, but the familiars were a solid help with lesser demons so Nero wasn't going to argue yet. Let V come with him if the man wanted, for as long as he could walk.

Nero didn't personally know his way around Red Grave, having taken only one job here in the year he'd been with Dante, and that had been in the suburbs. He'd never come even close to downtown before. The nexus was visible between the buildings, though, and Nero just chose a street that looked like it went the right way to try to approach it. Shadow gathered himself around V's feet to support him, while Griffon retreated into V's tattoos, and they made good time down the road.

Nero found his mind wandering as they walked, and as it usually did today it wandered to Dante. It had been more than a day since V had lost track of him ... what was happening to him? Maybe the best case scenario was for Dante to have been speared on one of those tendril roots, _sacrificed_ as V called it, his blood drained for the Qliphoth's use. So many other, more horrible things were possible; Nero found it impossible to imagine a good outcome.

But if Dante was dead, there was nothing left for Nero. He knew he had to be ready for that possibility, and indeed the weakness inside Nero sort of already accepted it. Dante was dead, and all Nero was looking for here was confirmation. He'd do what he could to Urizen, but even if he won against the great demon, Nero knew he'd already lost himself.

"You're quiet," said V.

"Just thinking," said Nero.

"Nothing too serious, I hope."

"You know about Urizen," said Nero. "What do you think he did to Dante?"

There was a long hesitation from V before he answered. "I don't know if Urizen would kill him. It's possible, but it's also possible he might want to ..." Another long hesitation, that stretched out to silence.

"Might want to what?" prompted Nero. "Torture him? Play with him? What? Come on, say it."

"Punish him, is what I wanted to say," said V.

"For what?"

Again V was silent for way too long, until Nero lost his patience. "Look, I have to know what we're up against, here. If you know, then you need to tell me."

"Urizen," said V, and then he broke off yet again, visibly reluctant to speak. But before Nero could yell at him, the ground shook again, more violently this time, and something huge and dark moved across the roadway up ahead.

"Uh, huh," said Nero, assessing the thing as best he could in the eight seconds it was visible. It was probably thirty feet tall, moved like it was two-legged, and it carelessly brushed aside a car as it crossed the street. It disappeared again between the buildings, but Nero wasn't going to let it get away; he picked up his pace into a jog to chase it. "That isn't Urizen I'm guessing," he said.

"Definitely not," said V. "Urizen is at the heart of the Qliphoth."

Nero was tired, and not enthusiastic to fight this thing, but he couldn't let it just wander around like this. He doubted there was a soul left alive in Red Grave by this point, but something that big could easily leave the city whenever it liked and go terrorize some other locale. He felt obligated to do something about it before that happened.

Overhead, a trio of military planes roared through the sky, passing low over Red Grave and not stopping.

Tracking the demon was simple enough; it was big enough that its steps reverberated through the ground, and it was in no major rush to get anywhere it seemed. Nero finally caught up to it near a church; V stepped away from Shadow to free up the familiar to fight, but Nero waved the cat back and approached the devil alone.

"Hey!" he called, cupping his hands around his mouth. "I'm looking for a demon named Urizen. Seen anyone by that name around here?"

The devil was huge and furry, and it pivoted to face Nero. "A human," it muttered as it did. It looked like nothing memorable. "I hadn't expected any survivors."

"Sorry to disappoint," said Nero. "Ahh, who am I kidding? I _live_ to disappoint big uglies like you."

"No," said the devil. It turned the rest of the way to face Nero, its feet crushing cars as it did. "Not human, I see. Well, you can't have it! _I_ am the one who will have it, not him and not you!"

"Have what?" asked Nero. This sounded interesting.

The devil advanced on Nero, taking a swipe at him when it was close enough, a strike that came so slowly that Nero easily leapt over it. "You won't have it!" it said again. _"I_ will have it, and _I_ will rule the underworld as king!"

"Have what?" asked Nero again. "What are we talking about?"

But the devil seemed to be finished discussing the matter; it jumped and tried to crush Nero underfoot. Nero rolled out of the way, and had his sword in his hand when he was on his feet again. The next attempt of the demon to flatten him came as a heavy downward slap. It was simple enough for Nero to step aside, and he met the beast's hand with Red Queen, just to get it to stop fucking around and fight him for real. The demon roared with pain as the blade skewered its hand, and then more loudly when Nero ripped it free and took a hank of meat off the demon's hand with it.

"Insolent pest!" it growled. "Do you know who I am?"

"The real question is whether I care," said Nero.

It snarled and tried again to slap him down, and again Nero saw it coming well in time to step out of the way. "I shall show you the wrath of the mighty Goliath!" said the demon.

"So far I'm just seeing a lot of huffing and puffing," said Nero. He slapped the beast's hand with the flat of his blade. "Now, it's getting dark and I don't have a lot of time to screw around with you, so what do you say we get on with it?"

Goliath turned and smashed in one corner of the church, demolishing it into huge chunks of broken limestone and mortar; Nero stepped aside again as pieces came raining down around him. The demon grabbed a section of the broken wall and roared; an enormous second mouth opened up on its belly, all but splitting the demon in half and oozing fire.

"Okay," said Nero. This was new to him.

The demon stuffed the wall section into this fiery second mouth, and moments later it belched out a ball of flame that Nero didn't even have to dodge because it missed him by a good six inches. The second fireball would have hit him dead on, however, so he jumped over it, and ducked to avoid a third. The heat of its passage scorched his cheek as he rolled under the ball's trajectory, but he was on his feet again a moment later and unimpressed.

"Is that it?" he asked. "Is that all there is to you?"

"Silence!" roared the beast. "You won't have it! I won't allow it!"

"Did you even ask if I wanted it?" asked Nero. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Goliath said nothing more, however, and came rushing toward Nero with its arms flailing, trying to whack Nero with no finesse whatsoever. Nero waited until the devil was almost on top of him, and then he stepped lightly between the thing's swatting hands and gave it a deep cut in the side as it stomped by him. Goliath then tried to backhand him, and he revved Red Queen as he danced backward and slashed the back of the creature's hand.

This demon was big, but it was slow and it was stupid. Nero was tired, but still considerably faster than it was and he knew he could wear it down safely. Slowly cutting it to death seemed almost cruel, but Nero wasn't going to jeopardize himself to put it down faster; all he needed to do was lead it where he wanted it to go and then slice it until it lost enough blood or he cut a tendon or something and it fell over. Then he could deal a finishing blow to its throat. Even its fireballs were not very dangerous, except to the environment, because they came out so slowly he could know their trajectory just by instinct.

It took only a few more cuts to enrage the demon, and its movements became even more frantic, and even easier to avoid. It screamed at him wordlessly, but it was just too big and its movements too slow and heavy for Nero to feel like he was in any danger here.

So it was that, when lightning suddenly jolted the demon and it jerked wildly to one side, the abrupt jerk of its arm took Nero by surprise; it caught him squarely in the torso and slammed him clear across the street and into the side of the building there.

Stunned for an indeterminable length of time, Nero eventually realized that he was on the ground with his sword still in his hand, pain stabbing through his left upper back and through his left leg while something roared deeply nearby. He tried to get up, knowing without knowing how that he had to get up or he was going to die; as he took a deep breath the pain in his back skewered him through the lung, and with it a deep-seated stab of fear. _No._ Not now. Not now.

Nero attempted to stand, and a horrific pain cracked through his lower left leg when he tried to put weight on it, so he assumed it was fractured but there was nothing he could do about that. The pain in his left lung was more important, because he could feel fluid starting to bubble through his chest and with it came a flush of fear. Not a panic attack, not yet, but it wasn't far away and Nero was shaking when he levered himself to his feet with Red Queen as a crutch.

Black tendrils whipped at Goliath across the street, and sparks rained down from the sky as Griffon fluttered in the creature's face; Nero didn't see V but guessed he couldn't have been too far away. Okay, he remembered now what he'd been doing, and irritation flashed through him because he'd _had_ the situation under control until Griffon decided to interject himself. Testing whether his left leg would carry weight, Nero discovered that it was hellishly painful but workable – just a greenstick fracture, probably – but every time he inhaled and blood bubbled in his throat another cold spike of fear crashed through him. He'd broken at least one rib in his back, possibly more, and he could feel one of them jabbing him in the lung like jagged rebar.

Limping across the street to rejoin the fight, Nero saw V lurking near a ruined car, out of harm's way for the moment at least. Goliath was gathering up more demolished wall for its fiery second mouth, while Shadow slashed and jabbed at its legs and Griffon called barely-audible insults to it from the sky. Nero deliberately bounced on his left leg, wanting to experience the worst pain it could give him so he could know what to expect while fighting, and it was _almost_ intolerable. Almost. He could tolerate it. He told himself he could also tolerate the blood in his lung, the trickle of fluid that made him want to cough and hack it up, but he knew the panic was waiting for him, waiting for the moment when he tried to inhale deeply to strike. He couldn't let fear of the fear stop him, though. This demon needed to die.

Coming up next to V as Goliath belched fireballs at Shadow, Nero said softly, "Hey." Then he coughed blood into his hand, and his heart thumped in his chest at the feeling of it.

V whirled around, a relieved kind of smile spreading across his face when he saw Nero. "I'm sorry," he said, very quietly. "I thought he would help ..."

"Yeah, well, he didn't," said Nero, and then he had to pause to cough again. "Call them off."

"Is that a good idea?"

"Call them off," said Nero again. He wasn't going to argue or justify himself; the familiars were good companions for weaker demons, but something this size was out of their league. Nero needed to handle this, and he needed to do it without distractions.

"What about Nightmare?" asked V. "I could ..."

"Call. Them. Off." Nero made a slashing motion with his right hand, and then moved decisively toward the battlefield, walking as though every step weren't agony when he put weight on his left leg.

Whatever V did to communicate to his familiars, they somehow got the message; Shadow came pouncing away from Goliath and passed Nero, while Griffon simply flapped his wings to climb higher into the sky. The massive demon tried to chase the bird with its back to Nero, pawing toward Griffon as he retreated, giving Nero a free opening to leap onto some fallen masonry and thence to the demon's shoulder, setting Red Queen alight as he jumped and then ramming the blade down into the junction of Goliath's shoulder and neck with all his weight behind it.

An instant later agony stabbed through Nero, and he was barely aware that Goliath had swatted him off its shoulder because as he hit the ground his broken rib skewered him through the back and the world blacked out. Nero fell once more into that squalid basement, aware of nothing but the impaling rebar and the dark promise of more. Panic slammed through him and he scratched and clawed and – impossibly, because he was nailed to the wall behind him – rolled over onto his belly and dragged himself across the floor, and he heard laughter over his head and something bellowing behind him.

"Nero," said a voice nearby, and Nero screamed a little as it startled him and the scream devolved into a coughing fit. He curled up on his side, coughing out the blood in his lungs, each cough spasming the broken rib, and as he did his vision cleared and he realized that he wasn't back in that basement at all. He was on the street, the ground under him asphalt and not concrete.

"Dante," said Nero, because all he wanted for a confused moment was his lover in his arms, so Dante could chase away the nightmares and soothe his irrational panic. Somehow Nero found himself clinging to someone different, someone thinner, with narrower shoulders and a completely different smell, and once he realized that he pushed himself back, flustered.

"Nero," said V, and the man kept his hands on Nero's shoulders, helping to hold him upright. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," said Nero, automatically. "Yeah, I'm fine." He wiped his left hand over his face and hair, and tried to look around. If he breathed very shallowly, he could do it with a minimum of pain. "What's happening? What happened?"

Then he got a good look at V, and went still and quiet because V's hair had gone completely white.

"Nightmare is fighting Goliath," said V, without any regard at all for Nero's shock. "Your sword is still in Goliath's neck. I don't know if Nightmare can take this demon down, so we need you to get back up. Please, Nero. Get back up."

"What ..." _What happened to your hair?_ Nero couldn't get the words out, and coughed when he tried. Blood stained his hand, fresh and red. V looked like he could be a relative now, some long-lost cousin.

"Nero. You have to kill this demon." Even V's dark green eyes were somehow ... lighter, more crystalline. Inhuman.

"... right," said Nero, only because he could still hear Goliath howling, and that demon needed to be put down. Nero put a hand on V's shoulder and used the other man to lift himself back to his feet.

Goliath was still next to the ruined church, and it looked much the worse for wear with its fur burned here and there and blood matting much of the rest. It was fighting another demon, smaller but still pretty big, black and rock-like, or maybe metallic. As Nero watched the smaller demon – what could only be Nightmare - shot a bright white laser-like weapon at Goliath, which burned the bigger creature and made it shriek.

Red Queen's hilt stuck up from Goliath's shoulder like the stem of a plucked flower, waiting for a ready hand to tear it free and let the blood flow. Nero moved around cautiously, every step on his left leg a minor hell, every breath an agony, and got his opportunity when Nightmare suddenly stepped back and began to melt down into the earth. Goliath raced to attack it again, and again didn't notice that Nero was behind it. So Nero just leapt once more onto the creature's back and grabbed Red Queen's hilt. This time, when Goliath moved to swat him away, he kept the sword in his hand, and when the demon smacked him the momentum of it ripped the blade free of the beast's shoulder.

Nero landed on his feet this time, and almost immediately went to one knee because his injured leg hurt like a _motherfucker_ catching him this way. But that turned out to be okay, because Goliath was mortally wounded now, blood pulsing up from the gaping hole in its shoulder. It took several steps toward Nero, and then collapsed flat on its face.

* * *

Griffon found a sort of small grocery store or bodega that wasn't too much of a detour, and V and Nero limped their way to it. V at first wanted to help Nero walk, but Nero pushed him away and walked on his own; he was exhausted, injured, in pain, and it was fucking dark out, but there was no way he was going to accept help from a weak human. It was slow going, because Nero no longer had to pretend that his leg didn't feel like someone had driven nails into the bone, or that he could actually breathe without each inhalation being cut off by a knife in his back, but they made it without incident.

The electricity was off, which meant that all the refrigerators and freezers were not functioning and the food in them was already spoiling. Nero warned V off from opening any of them, and instead went to the snacks section to pilfer some bags of chips and a two-liter of coke. What Nero wanted was real food, but he wasn't going to get it here and he needed some calories if he was going to be up to speed again by tomorrow.

They took their snacks outside and sat down on the step to eat them, V sitting with his ankles delicately crossed and Shadow laying placidly beside him, Nero with Red Queen at his side. V's hair was black again, and there was nothing inhuman about his eyes in the darkness now; Nero eyed him while he munched down on chips.

"What are you, really," asked Nero, yet again.

"No one in particular," said V smoothly. Then, he turned to Nero. "What happened after you were thrown the second time?"

"Don't change the fucking subject."

"I think it's important," said V. "You were doing so well and then ... all of a sudden you were screaming on the ground, and it didn't sound like pain to me."

It was very dark in the city streets, with the electricity out and no moon visible, and for that Nero was thankful because he felt himself flush with humiliation. He stuffed a couple of chips into his mouth, and mumbled around them, "It's none of your business."

V sighed, and leaned back, looking skyward. Shadow made a rumbling sound, and Nero thought to offer the cat a chip, which was turned down with a sniff and a wrinkled nose.

"I think it is my business," said V. "If you're going to break down unexpectedly, I think I need to know why. There's no way for me to compensate if I don't know what's happening."

_It's nothing._ The words were on the tip of Nero's tongue. _Nothing happened to me. I'm fine._ What he might have said to Lady, back at the office, was suddenly not acceptable to say to V, here in the middle of an invasion zone. V was right; Nero was unreliable, and he owed it to his companion to be honest about that. It was unfair that anyone had to depend on him right now, and unfair for him to keep the details of his non-dependability a secret.

Still, it wasn't necessarily easy to admit to being a fuckup, and so Nero took his time and chose his words. "I have these ... little ... episodes, you might call them. Where I sort of black out for a second." And then his heart would race and his breath would come fast, and it took him some time to come back to himself and stop feeling like he was going to die. "It happens whenever something reminds me of ... something that happened last year."

"What happened last year?"

"Just some shit," said Nero. He munched down on a couple more chips. "I got hurt." He put his right hand to his chest. "I ended up with ... some blood in my lungs, and whenever that happens again I'm probably going to black out on you."

"I see. Hopefully we can avoid that happening to you, but there are no guarantees."

"I wasn't the first choice, here," said Nero, a little flare of anger coming to him. "I didn't want to come at all, for this very reason. The only reason I'm here is because you fucked it up with Dante." It felt weird having it sort-of in the open with V, weird and mortifying, but also freeing, in a way. Like something poisoned had been opened to the air. "So that's all there is to it."

"What else ... reminds you of this incident last year?" asked V quietly.

"Nothing more that you need to worry about," said Nero.

"I think I'll decide what worries me."

"It's not ..." _Not a big deal,_ was what Nero wanted to say, but of course that would have been a lie. It was a big deal. It could potentially get Nero and V both killed. He sighed, drew in a breath that knifed him painfully in the broken rib, and reminded himself that there was more at stake here than his own safety. "The other big dangerous one is if I get pinned down with my arms spread," he said eventually.

V thought quietly for a moment, and then said, "So you're saying that some time last year, you were pinned down and stabbed through the chest."

"Stapled down actually," said Nero quietly. "And stabbed, ahh ... quite a few times."

"You're saying you were tortured."

"I did _not_ say that," said Nero.

V cocked his head to the side and looked at Nero sidelong. "That sounds like torture to me."

A little flash of fear lanced through Nero's heart, speeding up his heartrate. "That is not the word I'd use," he said. "And I would appreciate it if you wouldn't use it, either."

Shadow rumbled again, and V stroked a hand over the cat's head. Nero glared at the demon familiar, wondering what it was saying about him. "Was it humans who tortured you?" asked V.

"That didn't happen," said Nero, flatly, because he didn't want to talk about this if V was going to characterize it as _torture._ He dropped the bag of chips he'd been eating and stood up, turning his back to V and putting a hand over his heart. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest, and his breath was starting to speed up, which was deeply uncomfortable in the broken rib in his back.

"It was, wasn't it?" said V. "Humans." He made a complicated sound behind Nero's back, but Nero couldn't interpret it at all, mainly because his attention was now fully focused in his own body. The way the fear threaded through him now, tugging at his heart and numbing his fingertips, the way he could acutely feel the residual blood still in his lung. He had a sudden, unwelcome wash of memory, not like a typical flashback but nevertheless uncontrollable, of standing yet-unharmed where he was told to stand, while a man he'd thought of before as a friendly acquaintance hefted a length of rebar and a mallet.

"Nero?" asked V quietly.

"It wasn't ..." said Nero, and then he broke off because he couldn't say it. He tried again. "I wasn't ... I wasn't. It didn't happen like that."

"It didn't happen that humans tortured you?"

_"Stop ..."_ Nero tried to get his voice under control, and almost succeeded. "Stop saying that. Just fucking stop."

"I'm sorry," said V, but his tone was smooth and betrayed no hint of actual regret. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Nero had to stand there with his back turned, in silence, for a good few minutes before he had his breathing and his heartbeat back down to normal. It was a couple of minutes of feeling like he was going to die, of feeling like a panic attack was looming over him, or maybe that he was having one and it just wasn't like the ones he was used to by now. It was impossible to say. Eventually the feeling of doom faded, though, and he sat back down on the step and took in a long, slow breath until the broken rib spasmed and put a stop to it.

Then he picked up his bag of chips and resumed eating them. The best way to get rid of the pain in his leg and the pain in his rib was to eat something, now.

"I'm sorry," said V again, and he was petting Shadow. "I just need to know what I'm dealing with here. So it's blood in your lungs, being held with your arms spread ... anything else I should know?"

Nero snorted, and the sound came out uncertain. "I took care of the other one that hit me during fights," he said. "I cut my hair so nobody could grab me by it anymore."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing that is going to affect me here in Red Grave."

"I see." Then, unexpectedly and uncomfortably, V's right hand landed on Nero's left shoulder, and the man said, "It's very courageous of you to come with me, here, knowing that this could happen to you."

"I have to find out what happened to Dante," said Nero. "If he's dead ... I need to know."

"I hope he's not. And ... I hope that the fact that humans did this to you doesn't affect your view of humanity."

Nero gave him a sideways look, unsure what that comment meant. "I don't blame all humans for it."

"You're partially human yourself," said V. "I feel like we all need our humanity sometimes."

"I never said we didn't," said Nero, and V went silent again.

By the time Nero was done with his chips and coke, his leg felt almost healed, and his rib was no longer poking him so aggressively every time he inhaled. He coughed up what he hoped was the last of the blood, and then leaned back and sighed.

"We should find a safe place to rest," he said.

"Shadow can keep watch for us," said V. "We could probably just sleep here, if we go inside."

"Yeah, maybe," said Nero. He didn't like that option, but none of the options were actually good. They were in danger here in Red Grave, from wandering demons if nothing else. If he hadn't gotten injured, he would have kept going probably all night, but he had, and V was human.

If Dante was dead, it made little difference, but if he was still alive ... Nero thought back again to that woman in the house basement, suffering through an entire extra night of being chewed by demon spawn. He hoped nothing like that was going on with his lover, but there were no guarantees.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another mention of suicidal ideation in this chapter, but you're used to that by now I expect. Thanks to JustVisible for betaing.

It was silent when Nero woke, not even a singing bird to break the perfect crystalline stillness of the air. He remembered where he was immediately, and opened his eyes to see if V was there. The dark-haired man was curled up on the floor, sleeping apparently, his breath making no sound whatsoever. Shadow was at the door, and the big cat was awake, looking out the glass at the silent street. Nero wondered if demons slept.

He'd slept himself sort of half-sitting up, propped up against the wall near the door to ease the pain of his broken rib, and he closed his eyes again for a moment because he really didn't want to be awake. He didn't even want to be alive, really ... and what had seemed okay in the darkness, necessary even, felt humiliating in the light. He'd told V ... not everything, but enough. Enough that it was going to be difficult to face the man once those green eyes opened. More than he'd wanted, for some reason.

Had Nero had Blue Rose in hand, despite his fear for Dante, he might well have turned it on himself right then out of shame. He was so weak. So pathetic.

He was also hard. That was more annoying than anything, probably a reaction to all the demon killing he'd done the day before. Normally he'd just roll over and molest Dante awake, or to some semblance of awake, and deal with it that way, but Dante ...

Nero pushed himself to his feet and put Red Queen on his back, rolling his left shoulder to test how the weariness there had healed. Shadow turned his head to regard Nero with his dark red eyes, and then V also woke and Nero had to look away. "We should get moving soon," said Nero, to the darkness inside the bodega. He started to walk that direction, intending to find the restroom.

V picked himself up from the floor, the sounds he made somehow graceful despite the hard tap of his cane. "How long have you been awake?"

"Not long." It was dark at the back of the building, but not as dark as it had been the night before and Nero's devil bringer was capable of lighting the way. Nero found a likely-looking door and poked his head in, discovering it to be a hallway blocked completely by Qliphoth root. Flicking Red Queen alight, he hacked at the root until it was severed, and then pushed the pieces aside to discover the office, the breakroom, and the employee restroom.

Dealing with his erection required more than a perfunctory stroke, because despite the rock-hardness of it Nero discovered quickly that he wasn't ready to just come. He tried for a few minutes, but the pleasure wasn't there, and he eventually had to start imagining Dante to get himself worked up. He thought about turning his head to expose his throat for Dante's bite, kneeling for Dante, Dante's hands on his chest and Dante's cock in his body ...

Nero finally came, sobbing because what if Dante was dead? The odds of that seemed so high. Maybe he was jacking off to the memory of a dead man, and that felt almost like sacrilege, like blasphemy. He cleaned up the semen, then when his cock was soft he used the toilet and wiped down his face with a bundle of toilet paper. It wouldn't do for V to see that he'd been crying.

"Your turn," he told V when he walked back out into the bodega and toward the light. He still didn't look V in the face as the man passed him heading toward the back. Nero grabbed a box of snack cakes to eat for breakfast on his way out.

There was no way to tell what time it was, but it felt like early morning to Nero as he walked out of the store. He didn't want to see this morning. He didn't want to be here at all, and he especially didn't want to be the one to have to find Dante dead somewhere in this city. If he'd had any other choices ...

Maybe he should have just blown his brains out with Blue Rose a couple of nights before. Dante was almost certainly dead already, and killing himself a few days earlier would have saved him a lot of heartache here.

V came tapping his way out of the bodega a few minutes later, Shadow at his side, having clearly not had the same erection issue Nero had had. And why would he? He was human, and not affected by demons in the same way Nero was.

But Nero remembered V's white hair while Nightmare had been fighting Goliath, and he remembered that V hadn't answered any of his questions about that. Maybe V had a demon in _his_ ancestry as well, the way Nero did. Maybe his hair was naturally white, the way his skin was naturally clear of markings, and only the familiar hiding within him turned his hair dark. That would make sense, to the degree that anything about V made sense.

"Come on," said Nero, and he looked up to check where the nexus reached skyward, and started off in that direction. He unwrapped a snack cake and ate it, and offered the next one to V without looking at him.

"How are you feeling?" asked V, taking the cake out of Nero's hand.

Nero took a deep breath, feeling for the twinge in his back. "My leg is better," he said. "My rib is almost better. I can fight, don't worry. That's all you need of me, right?"

V offered no response for a while, and Nero didn't wait for one. He ate snack cakes until he was full and gave the rest to V, still not really able to look V in the face. He felt so stupid for confiding in this stranger what he couldn't say to Lady, although he could still acknowledge that it had been necessary. And it wasn't like he could have kept it a total secret after having a flashback right in front of the man.

"I was thinking about it last night before I went to sleep," said V eventually. "I imagine that Dante is alive."

"You're free to imagine that," said Nero.

"It's what I would do, if I were Urizen," said V. "I wouldn't kill him."

Nero half-turned, to get V in his peripheral vision, and frowned. "How do you know so much about what Urizen would do? What is even your connection to this job?"

Again, V was silent for a long time, until Nero was sure he wasn't going to get any answers this time, either. But then V said, very quietly, "Urizen is the latest incarnation of a demon that Dante has defeated before. He ... holds a grudge. I find it unlikely that he would kill Dante outright. He would want Dante to ... suffer, somehow."

A devil defeated but not destroyed. Nero thought about it a little and drew the only conclusion he could. "Urizen is Arvre, isn't he?" Then he corrected himself. "Sorry, Mundus is what you call him. That's Urizen, isn't it?"

"Arvre," said V softly. "Haven't heard that name in a while, not since ..." V paused, and then said, more loudly, "Where did you say you were from?"

"I don't remember saying that," said Nero. He reached a section of the road that had a lot of broken pavement, including one section that had split the road in half with a wide gap in between the pieces. "I'm from Fortuna, though."

"Fortuna," said V thoughtfully.

"It's okay if you've never heard of it," said Nero. He came to the edge of the gap and stood there looking down into it, hoping that V could get over it with Griffon's help.

"I've heard of it. They worship Sparda there."

"Yep," said Nero. "Hey, do you think you can make it over this hole?"

V came up to the edge of the crack and gauged the distance to the other side of it. "I can try," he said.

"Yeah, but can you succeed?" Nero didn't think he'd have any trouble himself, and to prove it he took a few steps back to give himself a running start and leapt the gap. No problem; he landed well clear of the hole. Then he turned and beckoned to his companion.

Raising his arm, V materialized Griffon and sent the bird into the air, and Griffon circled a few times before offering an opinion. The opinion wasn't good. "You expect me to lift you over _that?"_ said the demon familiar. "No way, V! I'd drop you halfway across!"

"We can always detour," said Nero. He jumped back to the other side. "Come on, there are other streets."

V folded his book to his chest, and Griffon soared away, back the way they'd come. "To answer your question," said V, "Urizen is not Mundus, although he was ... associated with Mundus, you might say, for a time. It was in that capacity that Dante defeated him."

"So Arvre's minion, got it," said Nero. He backtracked a bit to find a way between the buildings where he could cut over to the next street.

"Not a minion, exactly. It's ... difficult to explain."

Nero wasn't sure he wanted to get into the details of just how Urizen had served the devil god, not really seeing it as relevant. "The upshot is that Dante kicked Urizen's ass and now Urizen might keep Dante alive instead of killing him? That's what you're saying."

V trotted to keep up, until Shadow gathered under his feet to transport him. "That's ... I suppose, yes, that's what I'm saying. Urizen ... you have to understand. He wasn't following Mundus willingly. Dante ... possibly could have freed him from Mundus's control, if he'd wanted to do that. If he'd just noticed ..." His voice was getting a touch rough, some kind of emotion breaking through the smooth veneer. "So yes, I ... if I were in Urizen's place, I might want to keep Dante alive to ... vent my frustrations, you might say."

The interpersonal relationships of demons didn't interest Nero, although he supposed it might interest a demonologist. "All right," said Nero, with a sigh. "Let's say for the sake of argument that Dante isn't dead. What would Urizen do with him?"

"I can't even speculate. Urizen's power is far beyond anything I expected."

"Would he keep Trish alive, too?"

"Maybe. He resents her, as well."

Nero thought about asking why, but then realized his first question hadn't even been answered. He located a mid-block service alley and ducked into it. The alley smelled of rotting garbage, but that was tolerable. He decided to try again. "This still doesn’t answer the question of how you know all this stuff. Like what's going on in Urizen's mind?"

V edged his way through the alley behind Nero, Shadow at his side once more. It took him a long moment to respond. "I met Urizen, not long ago."

"And survived it?" Nero couldn't keep his skepticism out of his voice, and didn't try very hard. "He didn't just smush you, since he's so powerful?"

"Most of his power right now comes from the Qliphoth," said V. "But he still could have killed me if he'd wanted. I just wasn't worth the effort, I think."

"But he sat down to have a long conversation with you," said Nero. He emerged from the other end of the alley and into another street, and stopped on the sidewalk to give V time to catch up. "He told you all about his beef with Dante, and even mentioned Trish. Come on, V. If you're going to lie to me, at least respect me enough to make it plausible."

V said nothing until he was out of the alley, at which point he brushed back his hair and clutched his book and cane as though they were shields. He wouldn't look at Nero. "I'm sorry," he said. "Nothing I've said is a lie, but ..."

"But you don't want to give me the whole truth," said Nero. "Are you leading me into a trap? Is that what happened to Dante?"

"No," said V. "But of course, there's no reason for you to believe me."

"You're right," said Nero. "And I'm not sure I do." Nevertheless, Nero turned his back on V and started walking up the new street toward the nexus; he wasn't concerned about being directly attacked or anything, just about what was up ahead that V wasn't telling him.

Griffon came soaring back down then, and circled overhead. "This road is blocked, too," said the familiar. "Up another half mile or so. One of the buildings fell over."

"We'll at least have gotten around that hole in the pavement," said Nero.

V jogged alongside Nero with Shadow at his heels. "I promise I'm not lying to you," he said. He sounded slightly out of breath.

"Right," said Nero, anger breaking through his apathy. "You know, I don't really need your lies to keep me going. Even if Dante is dead, I need to fight Urizen as best I can to help out the humans. Just because I don't particularly want to be here doesn't mean I _wouldn't_ be here if you told me Dante was definitely dead."

"Is that really the case?" asked V softly. "If we knew for a fact that Dante was dead, would you keep going, or just ... give up?"

Nero stopped dead and rounded on V. "What do you know about me?" he demanded. Anger felt good. Anger pushed out the humiliation that V might somehow know about his suicidal thoughts, his desire as late as this morning to just not exist anymore. "Huh? What exactly do you know about me?"

Shadow moved in between them, placing his huge body as a barrier that only insulted Nero. V leaned on his cane and wouldn't look Nero in the face. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said that."

"You're damned right you shouldn't have," said Nero. "You don't know jack shit about me, so stop with the insinuations and assumptions. I don't want to be here. I've been clear about that, but I _am_ here and I'm going to do everything I can do get rid of your demon for you and for all the people he's murdered. You know nothing about me, and I don't think you know half as much about Urizen as you claim. I don't really need you with me at all and if you wanted to just stay here with your pets while I go do my thing, that would be perfectly fine with me."

"No," said V immediately. "You'll need my help. I promise you that."

Nero gestured widely to the world at large. "What possible help could a human being give me?"

Shadow bared his teeth threateningly with a rumble in his throat, and V laid a hand on the cat's head. "Knowing that Urizen defeated Dante easily, can you really reject any help you can potentially get? My familiars are not as strong as you are individually, but together they are quite powerful."

Griffon, circling overhead, said, "Don't forget that, Hot Shot. You're not immortal. Dante forgot that and told us to stay behind and clean up the stragglers. Look what happened to him."

"And what _did_ happen to him, then, wise guy?"

"He got his ass handed to him, which is exactly what's going to happen to _you_ if you don't listen to V."

Nero pointed at Griffon, and then down at Shadow and V. "I don't need this. I don't need any of you."

"You do," said V. He extended his arm and Griffon landed on it, then the familiar evaporated into black sparks that filtered down into V's tattoos. "I promise, I do know things about Urizen and I am not lying to you. I can't make you believe me, but I won't stay behind."

"I'm not helping you keep up, then," said Nero. He turned and started up the street again.

"I'm not asking you to," said V, and Nero heard his steps on the pavement as the man hastened to follow him.

* * *

They maneuvered around the fallen building mostly in silence, and despite what Nero had said and what he'd been intending at the time he'd said it, he didn't just vault over the chunks of masonry but instead chose a path around the ruin that would probably be difficult for V, but with Griffon's help not impossible. The building had fallen because of all the Qliphoth roots growing through it, and they still laced the ruin; Nero had to chop down three waving tendrils that lunged for him as soon as he got within range.

On the other side of the slumping ruin was a long stretch of good road, and V caught up to him here, riding Shadow's slithering bubble of demonic power. V didn't speak, and Nero didn't either, and they still didn't speak when Nero's devil bringer began to sullenly glow and a group of demons came surging out of one of the two-story buildings that lined this street. Nero didn't ask for the familiars' help, and V didn't offer it so much as just sent his familiars into the fight without asking. Nero gave Shadow a glare as the cat lashed at a demon with his tentacles, but he didn't try to send the familiar away or anything. They made things easier on him, to be sure.

This group of insectoid demons was accompanied by a more human-shaped one with a scythe, and another group of humanoid ones followed a little ways further down the road, which told Nero that they were getting somewhere. The scythe-wielding creatures were a bit more dangerous than the insects, less eager to run straight into Nero's sword and more inclined to use the longer reach of their weapons against him, but Nero wasn't in a mood to play and just hammered through their defenses by pure strength. The familiars didn't hurt, to be sure; Shadow and Griffon proved to be fully capable of handling these new demons, and had no doubt fought them before.

They were very close to the nexus now, close enough that Nero could see it arising from the shattered roof of a civic-looking building with columns out front. The courtyard of the building seethed with Qliphoth roots, although once Nero put down the last scythe-wielding demon he couldn't see any more demons there. Irritated, he stood where he was for a good thirty seconds or so before necessity overcame his silence.

"Hey, Griffon," he said.

"Yo," said Griffon, winging his way over from where he'd been hovering near V. "What's up?"

"You said yesterday there would be resistance at the nexus. What did you mean by that?"

"So you do need me!" said Griffon, and the bird flapped higher into the sky. "I meant there's a hell of a demon in that building. I just caught a glimpse of it because I didn't want it to spot me, but it's pretty big."

_Pretty big_ could mean just about anything, but Nero was ready to fight; it was still morning, he wasn't tired, he wasn't even hungry yet, and he was still angry at V. He could displace that anger onto a demon easily enough. "Right," he said, and he started to walk directly toward the front doors of the building.

"Wait!" said V, and when Nero turned he discovered that V was still finishing off the demons felled by his familiars.

"Why?" asked Nero. "What can you contribute here?"

V impaled the last fallen demon with his cane, and crossed the street to reach Nero. "You can at least use Shadow's and Griffon's help, can't you?"

"Hah," said Nero. "We saw how splendidly that worked _last_ time. They're helpful for the small fry, but I need my mental space for big demons. I don't need to be worrying about what someone else is doing."

"I see," said V.

"Just stay here," said Nero. "Or if you follow me in at least stay back and keep your familiars out of it."

"As you wish," said V, and when Nero resumed his walk toward the building he heard V moving, more slowly, to follow him.

The building had a large vestibule with a hand-lettered whiteboard sign on an easel in the lobby that read, in colorful letters, _Magic Mouse Reading Day!_ with an arrow pointing left. The large wooden doors leading inward were smashed open, and Nero eased his way through them, going straight in rather than try to sneak up on whatever was waiting for him inside.

His devil bringer glowed brightly, and his palm tingled. Whatever was in there was not weak.

Beyond the broken doors was a large chamber, now open to the sky; most of the stacks were broken down and the floor was littered with spilled books. The roof had been split open by the nexus of roots twining skyward, and daylight spilled down into the wide-open room. Nero could see the twist of the nexus swaying against the blue above.

Pacing amongst the broken wood of the stacks, crushing ruined books against the floor, was a huge armored demon riding a glowing blue horse. The horse tossed its head as Nero entered the room, both horse and rider looking directly at Nero.

"Howdy, pardner," said Nero, feigning a tip of the hat to the armored demon. "I don't suppose you'd like to step quietly out of my way, would you?"

The armored demon swung the sword in its hand – easily twelve feet long and sparking with electricity – and nudged the horse to charge directly at Nero. Nero waited until it was almost upon him, and then leapt to one side, slamming his sword down on the horse's face as he did. He left a long, deep gash along the beast's nose, and the horse screamed and reared.

Nero landed atop one of the stacks that hadn't yet been toppled, and immediately had to jump again when the horse struck the case; the armored demon was struggling to get its mount back under control. Something happened in front of the horse, then, a deformation of the air that Nero didn't understand, as though some kind of bubble that could be barely seen had formed before the beast. It looked like nothing Nero wanted to know more about, but he suspected it was a weapon of some kind that was going to be deployed against him as soon as the rider got its horse back in hand.

At the corner of Nero's eye, he saw movement at the smashed front doors, and he hoped V didn't actually enter the room or send his familiars in to "help."

As the rider wrestled the horse back down to all fours, Nero went behind it and slashed at the horse's hocks, and was nearly kicked in the head for his trouble. The animal demon moved unpredictably, so Nero backed off a bit to try to get a handle on its motions, and wished he had his gun.

Finally the horse stopped trying to buck and directed its fury toward Nero, whirling until it spotted him and then it and the rider charged at him again. Nero again waited until it was nearly trampling him before rolling under its hooves and trying to slash upward toward its belly, but this time something went wrong. It was as though Nero was moving through water, or something was clinging to all his limbs. His sword moved slowly, his body moved slowly, and the horse's hooves almost clipped him in the head as it leapt over him. His weapon didn't even touch it before it was clear of him.

The queer sensation passed after a few seconds, long enough for the horse to get clear and whirl around to charge him again, but Nero wound up facing the wrong way and was in a bad position to attack either beast or rider. He barely even got out of the way before he was trampled, and as he rolled to the side the rider's sword clipped him on the thigh; the serrated tip ripped his jeans and scored his skin, and Nero counted himself lucky it hadn't cut him worse.

"The _fuck,"_ said Nero, quietly to himself. He hadn't expected to have the tables turned on him quite so abruptly. He got to his feet and faced down the horse, which was now again on the other side of the room and pawing the ground. Blood dripped down its face from the slash he'd delivered. Nero's thigh was almost numb; there had been some electricity in the blade when it had struck him, he guessed. He didn't dare take his eyes off the two demons so he had no idea how badly he'd been injured, but his leg took weight okay so it couldn't have been too bad.

The armored demon on the horse's back raised its sword, and lightning crackled down it to the tip. Griffon came flying in out of fucking nowhere, then, and threw himself into the demon's face, wings buffeting the rider's helmet, screaming insults. The demon swiped at the bird with its sword, but Griffon whirled away for a moment before coming in again fresh.

"Nero!" called V from somewhere off behind Nero. Probably – hopefully – the man was still at the doors where he could easily escape when this inevitably went bad. "That's a Geryon!"

"What the fuck does that even mean?" asked Nero, not taking his eyes off the demons.

"There's something else about that Angelo," said V. "Be careful with it! It's not like Goliath."

_Angelo._ There was a word Nero hadn't heard in a long time. He narrowed his eyes at the armored demon, which was having trouble fending off Griffon, although it didn't seem like Griffon was doing any real damage to it. Was this an artificial demon, then? Something manufactured, like the Angelos on Fortuna? Nero gave Red Queen an experimental swing and decided to take advantage of the rider's distraction. The armored demon – the Angelo – was less vulnerable than the horse, which was unarmored and also distracted by the uneven pressure on its back. The horse was Nero's target, and, apparently, also a dangerous foe in its own right.

So when Nero flicked Red Queen to set it ablaze and lunged, he aimed for the horse's throat. That sense of being suddenly moving through water hit him again as he started to make contact with the side of the beast's neck, and the horse reared up and away from his blade with a speed Nero just couldn't match. He tried to power through as though he were literally meeting resistance, but it didn't work; he just lost his balance when the sensation faded and Red Queen went suddenly fast and wide. The Angelo's sword was there to meet him, and Nero threw himself backward and lashed out with his devil bringer to keep from losing his face to it; electricity crackled along the weapon, and it arced from the sword to Nero's right hand, delivering a nasty shock that knocked him almost off his feet.

The Angelo then raised its sword as though to chop Nero directly in half, and Nero, unsure how things had gotten to this point, prepared to evade the hit with half his muscles twitching uncomfortably from the residue of the electricity. So he wasn't too upset when Griffon once again flew into the Angelo's face and gave him an opening to limp backward a few steps and maybe give himself a minute to recover. Nor was he going to complain very hard when Shadow bounded out from behind him to, he supposed, take over this fight because Nero was too incompetent today to do it himself.

"I'm sorry," said V, who was not hiding in the doorway anymore, but crouching now behind some of the wreckage at the perimeter of the room. "It seemed like a good idea to send them out ..."

"Yeah, yeah," said Nero. He shook his right arm; the muscles in his shoulder ached and felt like they'd seized up, although his devil bringer itself was, as usual, unaffected by whatever a demon could throw at it. "I don't understand what that thing is doing."

"It's a Timesteed," said V. "It can control time for brief periods. Slow you down, speed itself up ... that's what it's doing. It's not permanent. It wears off after a few seconds."

"What can I do to counteract it?"

V shook his head. "Nothing."

"Fuck." Nero had had this situation under control until the damned horse started to fuck with time. And there was nothing he could do about that? "Are you sure? There's not a special demon chant or anything?"

"No."

The floor under them vibrated as the horse again began to buck as Griffon tried to gouge out its eyes. Then Nero was able to see it do its time-manipulation thing on Griffon, as a sphere of distortion formed around the attacking bird; Griffon's rapid wing-beats slowed, became almost leisurely, while the blue horse retreated from Griffon's claws and the Angelo on its back swept its sword around. Griffon caught the sword's edge while still trapped in the time distortion, and had no chance to escape it. The massive blade threw the bird straight out of the distortion, flinging Griffon across the room and into the wall behind Nero's head. A spray of blood followed the tip of the sword.

Well, that was probably it for the mouthy familiar, Nero thought; he'd seen demons take far less than that and come out dead. Shadow was still harassing the horse, but it was only a matter of time before the same thing happened to him. Nero shook his right hand, felt for the twitching in his muscles and didn't detect any. He glanced down at his thigh and found, under the ripped cloth, a relatively shallow slice that had already stopped bleeding. He wasn't badly injured and now he knew how this time thing worked.

"Stay here," he told V. "Or better yet, get back out of here and stay clear. But if you want to bring out Nightmare before you go, I think this might be a good time."

"Should I call off Shadow?" asked V, stepping back.

"Naw, it's fine. Nightmare, though."

"Right. But Nero. That Angelo. It's not fighting for Urizen willingly."

Nero didn't see what V did to manifest his third familiar, only that black oily fluid started to crawl across the floor, gathering from the far corners of the room until the demon familiar clambered up to its feet. It lunged immediately toward the horse and rider, swatting with its fists; it pummeled the horse once in the shoulder, and then was itself partially caught in a time-manipulation bubble. The Angelo took a swing at Nightmare and its sword clanged off the familiar's rock-like surface, electricity discharging harmlessly.

While Nightmare served as a distraction, Nero circled around, looking for an opening. The Angelo turned its head and its mount to keep him in sight, but the great blue horse became unruly when it wasn't allowed to maintain its own sight on Nightmare and Shadow. The distortion bubble around Nightmare disintegrated and both familiars assaulted the horse; the beast tried to back up, tried to rear to lash out with its hooves, but the Angelo on its back settled its weight to prevent this.

Maybe the rider was the key; it was worth a shot. The horse was mostly acting on instinct, and it was the _horse_ that controlled time. Nero jumped up onto a bookcase near the wall, and the moment the Angelo looked away from him to again try to get the horse under control, he threw himself off the bookcase and reached across space with his devil bringer, latching onto the Angelo's head with the spectral hand and yanking.

An instant later Nero was up close and personal with that Angelo, slamming his sword down into a miniscule gap between its helmet and the armor on its shoulder; Red Queen was deflected by the flange on the creature's helmet and missed the junction. The Angelo made an angry sound – the first vocalization Nero had heard from it – and Nero had to brace his feet on its shoulder and leap up into the air to avoid the downward swing of the demon's blade. Electricity sparked off it, and Nero again took the shock on his devil bringer; then bolts of lightning rained down from the clear sky, which missed Nero probably only because he was midair at the moment and not grounded.

He landed on his feet some distance away, and the Angelo immediately turned its mount to charge him. Nero let it approach, and then started to roll to one side but at the last second he instead leapt into the air. The bubble of distortion caught his legs, but since most of him was already out of it by the time it expanded, it didn't inhibit him much; he stepped on the Angelo's sword as the demon swiped viciously at him, and hammered down with all his strength on the crest of the horse's neck.

The Timesteed screamed as Red Queen bit deeply into its crest, and reared, throwing its head back and throwing the Angelo right off its back. Nero stepped briefly across the rearing horse's hindquarters but jumped off again as soon as he could because the bucking horse didn't make for good footing; he came down, sword-first, on the fallen rider. The Angelo tried to roll to the side to avoid Nero's strike but Nero found the gap between the arm and shoulder armor with Red Queen's tip. The Angelo grunted with pain and rolled to its feet, ripping free of Nero's sword.

"Hey, Hot Shot," called a voice Nero had not expected to hear again. Griffon came flying in between him and the Angelo, arcing in a semicircle. "We'll take out the Geryon, you deal with this guy."

"I thought you were dead," said Nero, and he dodged to one side as the Angelo lunged to attack him. "What the hell happened?"

"Hah!" called Griffon. "It'd take more than that to get rid of me. You handle this Angelo, all right?"

"Right," said Nero. "You keep that horse from bothering me."

"It's a deal." Griffon flew away.

Without the horse messing with his timing, Nero didn't think he'd have much trouble with the Angelo, and indeed he didn't. The armored demon called down lightning from the sky, and Nero rolled out of the way; the creature plunged its sword into the ground to electrify the floor and Nero just leapt over it until the shockwave passed. The metal armor it wore made it more difficult for Nero to score hits but it also slowed the demon down, making it easy enough for Nero to avoid retaliation when he did dart in for a strike.

Nero spared no attention whatsoever for what the familiars were doing with the horse, but he could hear it scream with pain and rage every few minutes. Eventually he heard an almighty thud from behind him. "I think your mount is down," he told the Angelo conversationally, as he danced backward to avoid a blow from the Angelo's sword, and he thought he should probably end this quickly before the familiars decided to interfere and fucked things up for him.

The Angelo was bleeding from several gaps in its armor, courtesy of Red Queen's point, but Nero's sword wasn't really made for fine details and he'd already hacked a couple of dents into the armor itself. Nero waited for the Angelo to swing at him again, then jumped over the strike and brought Red Queen down on one of the dents he'd previously made, hammering down the flaming sword in an effort to make the armor yield. It wasn't steel, but some kind of demonic metal; it parted under the heavy blow and tore open.

Beneath the armor, Nero expected bleeding flesh, and there was that, but also a second face under the folds of flesh. The Angelo swept its sword upward in a retaliatory arc, but the swing went wide and wild; Nero ducked under it, and then took Red Queen in both hands and drove the sword straight into the Angelo's neck, trying for a decapitating cut.

It staggered backward, its sword going everywhere now as though it were a robot that had started to malfunction. Nero was confused by the second face; unlike Goliath's, this face looked almost human, eyes closed and covered in demonic blood, and it didn't try to belch fire at him or anything like that. It was almost as though ...

Nero needed the Angelo's head to come off, so he stepped inside the range of the long sword and struck again at the thing's neck, aiming once more for the gap between armor and helmet. The Angelo barely attempted to avoid the hit; a moment later it fell backward, its head attached only on one side of its neck. Pouncing on it before it changed its mind or something, Nero hacked at it to completely decapitate it.

There was someone _inside_ that thing, like with some of the higher-ranked Angelos on Fortuna. V had said that this Angelo wasn't serving willingly, and suddenly that made far more sense. Nero stood next to the fallen demon and grabbed onto the edge of the torn armor with his devil bringer, and with all his strength he ripped backward. He expected a human to be inside, perhaps Ascended.

But the person who fell out of the ripped armor was Trish.

She was sparking with power, glowing white and, to Nero's instant embarrassment, completely nude. The glow of power faded after a few moments; Nero sat next to her and rolled her over so that she was half-on his lap and facing mostly downward, concealing most of her nudity. Footsteps and a tapping cane came up behind Nero, and Nero hugged Trish more closely to himself to try to protect her from view.

Within Nero, however, a high, heady feeling was rising in his belly and chest. If Trish was really alive, if she'd been stuck into this Angelo to power it instead of being killed outright ...

"Trish," said Nero, nudging her with his body. "Are you okay?"

"Is she?" asked V.

Trish gave no answer, and she was relaxed against Nero. Nero said, "She doesn't seem to be awake."

"She's probably exhausted," said V. "We need to take down the nexus."

"Can you handle that?" asked Nero.

"It'll take too long. Your sword will make it go much faster."

If Trish was alive, what did that mean for Dante? For the first time since Nero could remember, a sort of light was glowing inside him, just the faintest hint of hope that not everything was as bad as it seemed. It brought pain to his throat; he bent over Trish and fought it down.

"Yeah," said Nero, once he could trust his voice. "I'll help you." He eased Trish to the floor and shucked his coat, and laid it over her to shield her.

Trish was alive. Nero had to believe that Dante was, too.

* * *

The nexus grew huge and bloated from the walls at the other side of the library. Shadow was already over there, cutting at the base of the twist of roots in his spinning-blade form, but Nero knew he could make headway much faster himself. With Red Queen flaming, he took the sword in both hands and chopped at the roots.

The nexus made a sound as they severed more and more of it, a faint, high-pitched keening. The roots that were severed turned white and began to crumble into pollen, the color fading first at the base, and then the fade running higher into the sky as the remainder of the root died. The weight of the root mass above cracked the crumbling tendrils, and the nexus swayed in the sky and came tumbling down.

V moved hastily to the side, but Nero could tell it was going to crash down clear of him, so he didn't bother. He just raised a hand to shield his face as the nexus smashed into the building, and powdery pollen and masonry dust blew across him. The fallen roots, the ones still attached, writhed as though searching for something to kill, so Nero resumed hacking at their base. It took another twenty minutes and Shadow's assistance, but he got the rest of them cut down, destroying the nexus entirely.

Trish hadn't stirred by the time Nero finished up, and Nero was hot and dirty and sweaty and uncomfortable, so he went to sit down and rest a bit next to her. V was there, reading his book, and as Nero sat next to him he put a finger on the page.

"Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?" read V, "or wilt thou go ask the Mole: Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod? Or Love in a golden bowl?"

"I have no idea," said Nero. "Can love be put in a golden bowl? You tell me."

V smiled, and closed the book. "My opinion is that love is a tangible thing. Love is works. Love is something a person does, not something a person feels."

"Very profound," said Nero. He laid a hand on Trish's shoulder through the coat; she didn't seem to be breathing, but she _was_ a full-blooded demon, so that was probably normal for her. She was alive. The simple knowledge that Trish was alive put warmth into Nero. He'd done a good thing here today, even if he accomplished nothing else.

"Are you happy you're here?" asked V quietly. "You rescued your friend."

"I suppose," said Nero. Trish's hair was damp with some kind of clear fluid, and streaked with demonic blood; Nero ran his hand through it anyway. "Yeah, I'm glad I'm here."


End file.
